Photos: Final batch of SMAP launch shots aboard Delta 2 rocket

Getting off to a ground-shaking start, NASA’s $1.2 billion Psyche asteroid probe roared into space atop a Falcon Heavy rocket Friday, setting off on a 2.2-billion-mile voyage to a rare, metal-rich asteroid that may hold clues about how the cores of rocky planets like Earth first formed.

Using 21st century images taken by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, scientists have reconstructed the view Neil Armstrong had outside the window of the Apollo 11 lunar module as he guided the spacecraft to a safe landing site on the moon 50 years ago.

Ground crews at Vandenberg Air Force Base on California’s Central Coast hoisted NASA’s InSight Mars lander atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket Monday, kicking off nearly two weeks of integrated tests and checkouts before the probe’s interplanetary launch window opens May 5.