Live coverage: Atlas 5 countdown and launch journal

Soaring more than 200 miles above Earth, a Chinese spacecraft with two astronauts on-board closed in for docking with the Tiangong 2 space lab just before 1930 GMT (3:30 p.m. EDT).

Representatives from NASA, Boeing and Lockheed Martin argued that the United States shouldn’t skip past the Moon in favor of Mars when it comes to crewed deep space exploration. The discussion came up during a panel at the SpaceCom conference concerning the forthcoming Artemis 2 mission.

NASA unveiled an ambitious program Friday to commercialize low-Earth orbit, making way for product development and even advertising aboard the International Space Station, month-long visits by company astronauts starting as early as next year and use of a station docking port for privately financed research-and-development modules.