The Dragon spaceship poised for launch Tuesday will carry more than 2.5 tons of equipment for the International Space Station’s six-person crew, making the first U.S. supply delivery to the orbiting research complex since the crash of an Antares cargo rocket in October.
The Saturday night launch included another batch of 20 Starlink satellites that include Direct to Cell capabilities. The Starlink 9-13 mission lifted off from pad 4E at 9:25 p.m. PST (12:25 a.m. EST, 0525 UTC).
Astronauts will not fly to the International Space Station on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship until at least May 2018, NASA said this week, missing a previous target launch date at the end of next year.