Photos: Atlas 5 launches SBIRS GEO Flight 3

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket closed out a busy 2017 Cape Canaveral launch schedule on Dec. 15 with a successful liftoff on a space station resupply mission. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster, making its second launch, returned to Florida’s Space Coast for an on-target landing.

SpaceX teams working at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California were finalizing preparations Tuesday ahead of the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday carrying a trio of Canadian-built radar observation satellites into orbit.

Most parts of the joint European-Russian ExoMars lander and rover are nearly ready for launch, but trouble with parachutes, electronics, software and concerns about the growing coronavirus pandemic have delayed the mission’s departure to Mars from this year until 2022, officials announced Thursday.