In Photos: SpaceX's 1st Reused Dragon Spacecraft Blasts Off

On the Landing Pad

SpaceX

The Falcon 9 first stage hit the bullseye.

Dragon Deploys

SpaceX

SpaceX’s Dragon cargo craft deploys from the second stage of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket on June 3, 2017.

Dragon Deploys Solar Arrays

SpaceX

SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule deploys its solar arrays after reaching space on June 3, 2017.

Holy Smokes!

SpaceXTwitter

SpaceX performed a static-fire test of a Falcon 9 rocket at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sunday, May 28. The test also ignited a small wildfire at neighboring Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Almost There

Glenn Benson/NASA

The Falcon 9 rocket is raised into positon for liftoff at the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A.

Getting Vertical

Glenn Benson/NASA

The Falcon 9 rocket is raised into positon for liftoff at the Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A.

Kennedy Space Center

Bill Ingalls/NASA

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, with the Dragon spacecraft onboard, is seen shortly after being raised vertical at Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, Thursday, June 1.

CRS-11

SpaceX/Flickr

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket stands tall on Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida prior to launch on June 1, 2017.

Launch Complex 39A

Bill Ingalls/NASA

A view of NASA's historic Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida before the launch of SpaceX's first reused Dragon spacecraft.

Dragon & Dragonfly

Bill Ingalls/NASA

NASA photographer Bill Ingalls spotted a dragonfly near the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, just hours before launching the Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos.