Video: Halloween liftoff of Atlas 5 with GPS 2F-11

Some of America’s most critical surveillance satellites, final members of other spacecraft series and a probe that will touch an asteroid are among 15 rocket flights planned by United Launch Alliance in 2016.

Working amid coronavirus restrictions, engineers readied a Soyuz spacecraft for launch Thursday to ferry two Russian cosmonauts and Navy SEAL-turned-astronaut Chris Cassidy to the International Space Station.

A Falcon 9 rocket powered by a recycled first stage lit its main engines for a hold-down firing on a launch pad Tuesday at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in preparation for launch with an Argentine radar satellite on a mission that will feature the first SpaceX booster landing on the West Coast.