Video: Soyuz launches three-person international crew

Virgin Orbit completed a captive carry flight of its liquid-fueled air-launched rocket Sunday over the Pacific Ocean in what the company described as its final development test before the small satellite launcher’s first mission to space.

Continuing a series of delays keeping NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer on Earth, NASA announced Tuesday that the satellite’s launch aboard an air-dropped Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket will not occur as scheduled Friday.

Running a day late, a United Launch Alliance heavy-lift Delta 4 rocket thundered away from Cape Canaveral early Sunday, boosting NASA’s $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe into space on a daring seven-year mission to “touch the sun” with repeated trips through the star’s blazing outer atmosphere.