Photos: Delta 2 rocket blasts off with SMAP satellite

The Deep Space Climate Observatory has resumed regular observations after NOAA and NASA engineers uplinked a software patch to the spacecraft a million miles from Earth, restoring data on space weather and a daily series views of the sunlit side of our home planet.

More than three years after its launch was delayed by a corporate merger, a commercial Earth-imaging satellite has finally shipped to its California rocket base for liftoff aboard an Atlas 5 in September.

Rocket Lab’s light-class Electron launcher is set to take off on its fourth flight from New Zealand, aiming to deliver 13 CubeSats to orbit on the company’s first mission for NASA.