Live coverage: Atlas 5 countdown and launch journal

NASA has selected Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX to move forward with development of human-rated lunar landers, committing nearly $1 billion in funding for a range of moonship concepts that include a variant of SpaceX’s next-generation Starship vehicle, officials announced Thursday.

A Boeing-built Intelsat communications satellite launched three years ago is drifting in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator after suffering a fuel leak and releasing debris fragments last week, according to an analysis by space surveillance experts.

Teams working in Northrop Grumman’s spacecraft factory in Southern California have connected the spacecraft and science modules of the James Webb Space Telescope for the first time, a major milestone as engineers prepare to verify a fix to tears in the observatory’s sunshield, and begin launch vibration and acoustic testing in the coming months.