Reporters run for cover as Antares rocket explodes

Racing against the clock to meet the Trump administration’s 2024 deadline to land astronauts on the moon, NASA plans to select Northrop Grumman to build a pressurized habitation module derived from the company’s Cygnus cargo craft for living quarters for crews transiting to and from the lunar surface.

Rocket Lab is readying for a launch from its New Zealand spaceport Saturday (U.S. time) with seven commercial satellites from Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom, while teams at Wallops Island, Virginia, move closer to Rocket Lab’s first launch there as soon as August.

A classified National Reconnaissance Office satellite mission assigned last month to launch on an Orbital ATK Minotaur 1 rocket will take off from Wallops Island in Virginia by the end of 2018, a U.S. Air Force spokesperson confirmed Wednesday.