Q&A with Matt Desch, CEO of Iridium (members only)

The launch vehicle Orbital ATK wants to face off against SpaceX and United Launch Alliance for lucrative U.S. military contracts would be made of two internally-built solid rocket motors and an upper stage engine supplied by Blue Origin, the entrepreneurial space firm led by Jeff Bezos, an Orbital ATK official said this week.

Watch a replay from a camera mounted on-board SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket as it released one of 10 Iridium Next communications satellites Monday nearly 400 miles above Earth.

Boeing Co. and SpaceX, selected by NASA last month to carry astronauts to the International Space Station, can resume development of their human-rated spacecraft after officials ordered a work stoppage prompted by a protest by Sierra Nevada Corp., the company left out of the contracts.