Shuttle Atlantis unwrapped ahead of public debut

Running through a practice countdown and hold-down engine firing at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket passed a key checkpoint Thursday ahead of liftoff next week with the U.S. Air Force’s fifth X-37B spaceplane flight, a mission that will come with several firsts.

Vice President Mike Pence, chairman of the recently re-established National Space Council, toured the Kennedy Space Center Thursday and vowed to renew American leadership on the high frontier, telling spaceport workers “our nation will return to the moon, and we will put American boots on the face of Mars.”

Launch facilities at Cape Canaveral were spared any significant damage as Hurricane Dorian churned northward off Florida’s east coast earlier this week, and employees at the spaceport resumed their normal work Friday.