Photos: Final ULA mission of the year blasts off successfully

The head of the launch enterprise directorate at the U.S. Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, Claire Leon, spoke with reporters March 15 about the military’s award of a GPS launch contract to SpaceX, and she discussed plans for more head-to-head launch contract competitions in the coming months.

Packed with food, hardware and experiments in biology, Earth science and space technology, a Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon supply ship lifted off Monday from Cape Canaveral destined for the International Space Station.

Officials hailed an action-packed three-minute test flight Tuesday over Cape Canaveral that exercised the Orion spacecraft’s launch abort rocket, a key safety system on the capsule NASA is developing to carry astronauts back to the moon.