SpaceX blasts off its Falcon 9 rocket carrying the unmanned Dragon cargo
ship, packed with more than 2,267 kilograms of food, gear and science
experiments for the six astronauts living at the International Space
Station. The mission was the first to take off from NASA’s historic
launchpad 39A, the origin of the pioneering United States space flights
that took astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the
space shuttle missions that ran from 1981 to 2011. Yesterday’s launch
from Cape Canaveral, Florida, was initially planned for Saturday, but
canceled 13 seconds before lift-off due to an engine glitch.