Video: Replay of SpaceX’s first launch and landing of 2018

Boeing and SpaceX hope to launch commercial crew ferry ships on long-awaited test flights later this year, but both companies face major challenges getting the spacecraft certified before late 2019 when seats aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft will no longer be easily available for NASA space station crews, officials told lawmakers Wednesday.

Vaulting away from Cape Canaveral on an unusual southerly trajectory, a Falcon 9 rocket dodged stormy weather and successfully placed an Argentine radar observation satellite into an orbit over Earth’s poles Sunday on SpaceX’s 100th launch.

Three veteran space fliers rode a Soyuz rocket into orbit Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, heading to the International Space Station for a five-month stay.