Video: Mars Pathfinder pre-launch preparations

Flying for the 155th and final time, a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket took off from California on Sept. 15 with NASA’s ICESat 2 satellite.

The next American polar-orbiting weather satellite that will feed long-range forecasts and track environmental trends has slipped into space-like testing ahead of launch.

NASA’s Mars Pathfinder probe dropped to the surface of Mars for an airbag-cushioned landing 20 years ago Tuesday, bouncing 15 times across an ancient flood plain before deploying a mobile robot to usher in two decades of uninterrupted Martian exploration.