Q&A with Claire Leon, director of launch enterprise directorate at SMC

A military communications satellite, built with international funding from Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and New Zealand, has been stacked atop a Delta 4 rocket to launch into a worldwide information-relay network operated by the U.S.

Confronted with pesky problems in the Falcon 9 rocket’s helium pressurization system, SpaceX has shuffled the order of the next two launches, choosing to go ahead with the liftoff of a Dragon supply ship on a cargo delivery flight to the International Space Station around April 10.

Tucked inside a shipping crate aboard an Air Force C-5 transport aircraft, the Navy’s next mobile communications satellite has flown from California to Florida in preparation for liftoff this summer.