Photos: Atlas 5 rocket aims for International Space Station

The launch of the next Landsat land imaging mission — a joint project between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey — has been delayed until around September 2021 after the effects of the coronavirus pandemic slowed work on the spacecraft in Arizona, NASA officials said.

A Soyuz rocket crowned by a Fregat upper stage carrying 11 Russian, German and U.S. satellites into orbit lifted off Thursday from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East, the first flight from the country’s newest spaceport since a failure in November.

The head of the Russian space agency said this week that the the Gateway mini-space station NASA plans to build around the moon is “too U.S.-centric” and added that Russia unlikely to significantly contribute to the project.