July 26, 1971: 45th anniversary of Apollo 15

Returning to service after a six-year hiatus, Orbital ATK’s revamped Minotaur-C rocket soared into space Tuesday from California’s Central Coast with 10 commercial Earth-imaging spacecraft for Planet, a San Francisco-based company with a globe-spanning satellite fleet mapping the world’s land masses every day.

Russian and European teams at the Guiana Space Center in South America plan to detach a UAE spy satellite from its Soyuz launcher to replace the rocket’s Fregat upper stage, forcing a likely delay until April from the mission’s original launch date of Friday.

In a mission marking the end of an era, NASA astronaut and former virus hunter Kate Rubins, using NASA’s last currently contracted seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, blasts off Wednesday with two cosmonaut crewmates on a flight to the International Space Station.