Live coverage: Orion lands in Pacific

A model of NASA’s Orion spacecraft, in development to loft astronaut crews into deep space, was dropped from a U.S. Air Force cargo plane over Arizona on Wednesday in the latest in a series of tests to verify the capsule’s parachutes are up to the job of safely landing with humans on-board.

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket stands 233 feet tall at Space Launch Complex-6 at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, ready for liftoff Saturday night carrying a top secret U.S. government spy satellite into orbit.

An Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket carrying eight hurricane research satellites for NASA fired into orbit Thursday at 8:37 a.m. EST (1337 GMT) off the east coast of Florida.