Video: Fourth X-37B launch highlights

Several NASA astronauts, plus Boeing test pilot Chris Ferguson, recently participated in a training session at Cape Canaveral, practicing how they would evacuate from the Atlas 5 rocket’s launch pad in the event of a countdown emergency.

Five months after a frightening launch abort, cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and NASA flight engineer Tyler “Nick” Hague, along with first time flier Christina Koch, are set for liftoff Thursday on a six-hour flight to the International Space Station, boosting the lab’s crew back to six.

Rocket Lab launched an Electron rocket from New Zealand at 9:20 p.m. EST Thursday (0220 GMT Friday) carrying 30 small payloads into low Earth orbit. The company said the first stage of the Electron rocket splashed down in the Pacific Ocean under a parachute, a major step in Rocket Lab’s rocket reuse program.