Live coverage: SpaceX Falcon Heavy launches NASA’s Psyche on mission to a metal asteroid

The Russian Progress 64P autonomous cargo ship docked to the International Space Station on Monday and the commercial SpaceX Dragon CRS 9 vessel was captured by the station’s robotic arm and berthed to the outpost on Wednesday.

SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk on Tuesday outlined an ambition to send humans to Mars with methane-fueled reusable spaceships and the largest rocket ever built, an effort he said will likely require government support and initially cost billions of dollars to develop and test.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket was test-fired at Kennedy Space Center’s launch pad 39A on Thursday evening, a few days before its scheduled blastoff with the EchoStar 23 communications satellite.