Stats: Delta 4 history and backlog (updated March 30)

When Chris Ferguson climbed into the commander’s seat of the shuttle Atlantis five years ago for the spaceship’s final flight, he didn’t know what turn his career would take when he returned to Earth. Now the former F-14 fighter pilot helps lead Boeing’s development of the CST-100 Starliner space taxi, one of two U.S.-built commercial spacecraft selected by NASA to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.

The belated launch of a powerful Earth-imaging satellite that will take the highest resolution pictures in the market, postponed by an unprecedented wildfire near the pad, is scheduled to fly on Friday.

An unpiloted test flight of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule to the International Space Station will be delayed from its previous target launch date of April 2 until at least May, after the arrivals of Russian Soyuz and SpaceX Crew Dragon ships bringing fresh crew members to the orbiting complex, NASA officials said Monday.