Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

A robotic arm extended from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft briefly contacted the rugged surface of asteroid Bennu Tuesday to gobble up pristine samples, a climactic moment in the $1 billion mission to bring asteroid material back to Earth in 2023.

Two satellites equipped to broadcast television programming to millions of homes across the United States and Latin America are braced for launch from French Guiana on Wednesday aboard an Ariane 5 rocket.

SpaceX scrubbed the launch of a nearly 7.5-ton Intelsat communications satellite Sunday after a computer-triggered abort halted the countdown in the final 10 seconds.