Kennedy Space Center

it will test the rocket and spacecraft’s capabilities for carrying astronauts on the more-than-250,000-mile journey to the moon.

NASA’s next moon rocket is on the move, leaving the Vehicle Assembly Building Thursday afternoon and heading to a launch pad at Kennedy Space Center for a critical test before launching later this year.

Organizations like Space Florida have worked to rebuild the Space Coast’s economy after the end of the Space Shuttle program back in 2011.

It begins on Thursday with the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

This includes a pair of launches from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the first of which is scheduled for Saturday night.

The Inspiration4 crew safely returned to Earth Saturday evening after three days of orbiting the planet. It is the first all-civilian mission to orbit.

On this week's "The Florida Roundup," we talk about how Gov. DeSantis wants to end city and county vaccine mandates and the Florida Standards Assessment; a lawsuit seeks more transparency from the state in releasing COVID-19 data; and an all-civilian space crew.

Marking the latest step in the commercialization of space, the SpaceX mission has launched four civilians, including a billionaire CEO, a physician assistant and a geoscientist.

A crew of four civilians will hitch a ride from SpaceX, spending three days in orbit inside their spaceship.

All of the technologies that are being deployed on this mission can be used for future missions in space.

The new arrivals — representing the U.S., France and Japan — will spend six months at the space station.

The company's third crewed spacecraft took off from Florida early Friday.