Q&A with Mike Hawes, Lockheed Martin’s Orion program manager

Managers have pushed back the next flight of United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4-Heavy rocket from a launch pad in California until no sooner than early December, and the first launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy for the U.S. Air Force has likely been delayed to some time early next year, officials said this week.

Perspectives of Friday’s United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket flight were snapped from a commercial airliner, a satellite observer in Australia and the booster itself.

The Russian Soyuz rocket that will carry a three-person crew to the International Space Station Wednesday has arrived on its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.