Video: Antares rocket returns to flight with new engines

After completing a countdown dress rehearsal, Astra is gearing up for its first orbital launch attempt this week from Kodiak Island, Alaska, but company officials said it will likely take multiple test flights before the new small satellite launcher successfully reaches orbit.

Veteran Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, more than three months into his fifth trip into orbit, has passed countryman Sergey Krikalev’s mark of 803 days of cumulative time in space.

The United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket fired away from Cape Canaveral at 1:51 p.m. EDT today to deploy a covert surveillance satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.