Watch the Falcon 9 launch from pad 39A

Nine Merlin engines at the base of SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 rocket fired up Tuesday on a launch pad in Florida, wringing out the booster and ground systems ahead of a planned liftoff Sunday with a top secret payload for the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency.

An on-target touchdown in Kazakhstan punctuated a 115-day space mission for Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin, Japanese flight engineer Takuya Onishi and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins this weekend. Photographers recorded the moment with these vivid photos.

The launch of the first batch of new-generation Iridium communications satellites Saturday marked the beginning of the end for the predictable, spectacular flares of reflected sunlight produced by the old-design craft, a favorite of amateur skywatchers for nearly two decades.