Shuttle Atlantis unwrapped ahead of public debut

SpaceX’s first human-rated Crew Dragon spacecraft took off Saturday from historic launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, launching NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on the first piloted orbital space mission from a U.S. spaceport in nearly a decade.

SpaceX says engineers completed checks of the Falcon Heavy rocket, its satellite payloads, and ground systems at the Kennedy Space Center after a lightning strike on the launch pad’s tower Thursday night, part of a wave of severe weather that forced officials to delay the launch attempt.

Stormy weather near NASA’s Kennedy Space Center kept SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket on the ground Thursday, delaying liftoff of a commercial supply ship with equipment and experiments for the International Space Station until Saturday.