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

With lingering uncertainty about when new U.S. commercial vehicles can regularly carry crews to the space station, NASA said Tuesday it will pay the Russian space agency more than $90 million for a round-trip ticket to the International Space Station on a Soyuz spacecraft later this year.

Aiming for reusability, Rocket Lab has demonstrated the mid-air recovery of a booster test article in a key test before rigging the first stage of the company’s Electron launcher with a parachute on missions beginning later this year.

The U.S. Space Force is planning for an airborne launch of a solid-fueled Pegasus rocket over the Pacific Ocean by early summer after quietly awarding Northrop Grumman a contract for the mission last year.