Video: Delta 4 launches before dawn from California

A new optical Earth observation satellite launched by China Monday joins the country’s remote sensing network for land surveys, urban planning, and agriculture monitoring.

Two months after a first test-firing ended prematurely, NASA plans to ignite the core stage of the first Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket again Thursday for an eight-minute burn to confirm it is ready for shipment to the Kennedy Space Center for launch preparations.

The latest prototype of SpaceX’s  Starship launch vehicle — Starship SN10 — took off from the company’s South Texas test site and flew to an altitude of more than 30,000 feet Wednesday, then descended to a controlled vertical landing after two previous test vehicles crashed at touchdown. Minutes later, the 16-story test rocket exploded in a fireball, but the test flight appeared to be a major step forward in the early stages of the Starship program.