SpaceX rolled the first Crew Dragon spacecraft out to a Florida launch pad Thursday for final preparations ahead of a test flight to the International Space Station.

NASA announced Thursday nine companies that will be eligible to compete for up to $2.6 billion in contracts over the next decade to ferry scientific instruments and tech demo payloads to the moon aboard commercial robotic landers, a first step in what agency officials said will foster expanded private investment in deep space exploration and an eventual return of humans to the lunar surface.

Follow the key events of the Soyuz rocket’s ascent into orbit from the Guiana Space Center with the first COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation, or CSG 1, radar observation satellite, the European Space Agency’s CHEOPS exoplanet telescope, and three CubeSats.