Live coverage: Atlas 5 countdown and launch journal

Three experimental satellites sponsored by the U.S. military lifted off on an Electron rocket from Rocket Lab’s commercial spaceport in New Zealand on Sunday at 0600 GMT (2 a.m. EDT).

Andrew Driesman is project manager for NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, leading a team of engineers and operators in charge of the first mission to fly through the sun’s atmosphere.

For the final time, a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule approached the International Space Station Monday for capture with the research lab’s robotic arm, delivering more than 4,300 pounds of food, experiments and spare parts. Future Dragon resupply missions will use a new spaceship design to automatically dock with the space station.