Live coverage: Atlas 5 countdown and launch journal

On the eve of the Iridium’s fifth launch with SpaceX, the mobile telecom satellite operator’s chief executive says he no longer waits for SpaceX’s rockets to be ready. Instead, Iridium’s satellite team is racing to keep pace churning spacecraft off their assembly line.

Boeing engineers have completed hotfire testing on a flight-like model of the Starliner crew capsule, clearing a major hurdle before a pad abort test and a demonstration flight to the International Space Station later this summer, Boeing announced Friday.

Constructing the launch pad infrastructure for astronauts to board Boeing’s Starliner crew capsules atop United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets, workers delivered the Crew Access Arm with its White Room to Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 on Thursday, Aug. 11.