Photos: Delta 4 lights up the sky for night owl launch

NASA says it is interested in flying astronauts and scientists on commercial suborbital vehicles, like those being tested by Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, to provide additional training and research opportunities augmenting missions to the orbiting International Space Station.

SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk has shared images of the Falcon 9 booster’s crash landing on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean after the rocket’s successful Jan. 10 liftoff with supplies for the International Space Station.

Rocket Lab plans to launch a research and development microsatellite mission for the U.S. Air Force in the first half of 2020 on the the first flight from the company’s new launch facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, officials announced Thursday.