Photos: Atlas 5 on the pad for X-37B launch

Launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California’s Central Coast on its third try, United Launch Alliance’s Delta 2 rocket lifted off Saturday with NOAA’s JPSS 1 polar-orbiting weather satellite.

Spare parts warehoused in the the United States and Russia will help Boeing finish assembly of a third space station docking port to receive arriving astronauts aboard Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsules, replacing a unit lost in a Falcon 9 launch failure last year.

NASA has selected six companies to work on designs for deep space habitat modules that could be used by astronauts living and working near the moon as technology is developed for eventual flights to Mars, the agency announced Tuesday.