Houston, We Have a Dragon
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.—Believe it or not, getting to space wasn’t the hard part.
In the past few years, SpaceX has mastered launching Falcon 9 rockets and putting payloads into space. The company has also perfected an intricate maneuver that returns rocket boosters to Earth, landing them gently on the ground or on a ship off the Atlantic coast, to be spruced up and used again. Last year, it launched more than 20 rockets into space without incident.
On Saturday morning, a Falcon 9 again above Kennedy Space Center, painting a streak of gold against the night sky, and deposited a spacecraft into orbit. After the launch was over, SpaceX engineers braced for the next hurdle. A mistake could put the spacecraft, the International Space Station, or
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