Photos: Atlas 5 powers away with NROL-61 payload

The UAE’s Hope mission is set for liftoff this week from Japan, taking aim on Mars with a package of scientific instruments designed to probe weather and climate change on the Red Planet.

A European Vega rocket crashed back to Earth shortly after launching from French Guiana carrying a Spanish land imaging satellite and a French research probe with a combined value of nearly $400 million.

On the eve of the Iridium’s fifth launch with SpaceX, the mobile telecom satellite operator’s chief executive says he no longer waits for SpaceX’s rockets to be ready. Instead, Iridium’s satellite team is racing to keep pace churning spacecraft off their assembly line.