Video: TDRS-M takes flight atop Atlas 5

The U.S. Space Force is planning for an airborne launch of a solid-fueled Pegasus rocket over the Pacific Ocean by early summer after quietly awarding Northrop Grumman a contract for the mission last year.

The InSight Mars lander has won a reprieve from NASA’s top managers after persistent problems with one of the probe’s science instruments caused the mission to miss a narrow launch window planned for this month.

Rocket Lab’s next launch from New Zealand is set for no earlier than June 27 with a bundle of spacecraft including a commercial Earth-observing microsatellite for BlackSky, two CubeSats for U.S. Special Operations Command, a pair of tiny prototype data relay nodes for Swarm Technologies, a student-built payload from Australia, and a satellite whose identity and owner remain a secret.