Video: Fourth X-37B launch highlights

With a robot rather than a cosmonaut in the commander’s seat, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft rocketed into orbit from Kazakhstan late Wednesday (U.S. time) en route to the International Space Station on a critical test flight before crews begin riding an upgraded Soyuz booster next year.

SpaceX has filed a protest challenging a nearly $150 million NASA contract awarded to United Launch Alliance last month to send a robotic asteroid probe into space.

A commercial Cygnus supply ship departed the International Space Station on Friday for an extended mission to deploy five nanosatellites and conduct other experiments before re-entering the atmosphere and burning up with more than two tons of trash.