Drone’s view of Sunday’s SpaceX rocket landing

Boeing and SpaceX hope to launch commercial crew ferry ships on long-awaited test flights later this year, but both companies face major challenges getting the spacecraft certified before late 2019 when seats aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft will no longer be easily available for NASA space station crews, officials told lawmakers Wednesday.

An airspace restriction over West Texas posted on the Federal Aviation Administration’s website and filed by Blue Origin suggests the company founded by Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos could launch its upgraded reusable New Shepard suborbital booster for the first time this week.

The launch was the first of about half a dozen missions planned to expand the National Reconnaissance Office’s proliferated architecture satellite constellation. Liftoff from pad 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base happened at 7:53 p.m. PST (10:53 p.m. EST, 0353 UTC).