'The big show': US poised to return to human spaceflight with historic launch

Elon Musk's SpaceX, in partnership with Nasa, to launch Falcon 9 rocket from Florida carrying two American astronauts

In a historic moment a decade in the making, the skies above Florida will light up on Wednesday when the launch of a rocket born from a groundbreaking public-private partnership returns the United States to the business of human spaceflight.

Not since the retirement of Nasa's space shuttle fleet in 2011 has the US possessed the capability to send its own astronauts into orbit, and the success of this week's mission, formally known as SpaceX Demo-2, is likely to shape the direction of the space agency's near-Earth ambitions for a generation.