SpaceX launches and lands Falcon rocket from historic spaceport

Rocket launches from pad that was home to some of Nasa's best-known missions - then booster gracefully returns to Earth

SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday on a resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) that marks a new era of private spaceflight at one of Nasa's most storied bases.

A Falcon 9 rocket took off at about 9.40am eastern from the Kennedy Space Center, off the coast of central Florida, from a launchpad that has seen off some of Nasa's most famous missions but has gone unused since the agency retired its space shuttle fleet in 2011.