Photos: Delta 4 lights up the sky for night owl launch

Opening a new era in American spaceflight, a Falcon 9 rocket streaked into space early Saturday, boosting the company’s first Crew Dragon spacecraft into orbit on an unpiloted test flight, the first launch of a commercially developed capsule intended to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

A little more than a year after the Falcon Heavy rocket’s first test flight, SpaceX teams on Florida’s Space Coast are readying the world’s most powerful operational launcher for its second mission Thursday with a commercial communications satellite.

The launch of a NASA ionospheric research satellite off Florida’s east coast is targeted for Oct. 9 after persistent technical problems with its air-dropped Pegasus rocket stymied two launch opportunities last year.