STS-135: The final space shuttle landing

Moving closer toward launch Monday with a South Korean communications satellite, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fired its nine Merlin main engines Thursday on a launch pad in Florida in a key preflight readiness test.

NASA’s last space shuttle commander — former U.S. Navy fighter pilot Chris Ferguson — will fly Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner crew capsule on its first piloted test mission to the International Space Station next year.

Orbital ATK’s proposed rocket to answer the U.S. Air Force’s desire for two families of satellite launchers with U.S.-made propulsion systems will be named OmegA, and the company has selected the cryogenic Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10 engine to power the vehicle’s upper stage, officials announced this week.