Photos: Atlas 5 powers NRO payload into the night

A Russian Soyuz booster arrived at its launch pad on the Kazakh steppe Sunday, the last stop before liftoff Wednesday with a three-person crew bound for the International Space Station.

SpaceX test-fired the Falcon 9 rocket early Saturday ahead of launch with the next four astronauts heading to the International Space Station. The static fire test before sunrise Saturday in Florida was a major step toward liftoff Thursday.

United Launch Alliance’s first full-scale Vulcan booster with two Blue Origin BE-4 engines arrived at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Saturday, the first time in more than a decade that a core stage from a new family of orbital-class rockets has rolled into the Florida launch facility.