Jason 3 Mission Science Briefing

NASA announced Friday a mix of spaceflight veterans and rookie astronauts who will launch on the first flights of new Boeing and SpaceX commercial spaceships starting as soon as next spring, several months later than previously scheduled.

NASA and the U.S. Air Force are expected to return to normal operations Tuesday after lawmakers passed a budget bill Monday evening, ending a government funding lapse that threatened to cut off live television coverage of an International Space Station spacewalk and interrupt SpaceX launch operations in Florida and California.

Watch Falcon 9 lift off from Kennedy Space Center launch pad 39A on a space station resupply mission. The rocket’s first stage then returned to land at neighboring Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.