Video: Atlas 5 launch with GOES-S viewed from KSC press site (members only)

SpaceX could use its Starship vehicles to clear out space debris in Earth orbit, alongside the program’s more publicized purpose of ferrying people and cargo to the moon and Mars, a company executive said.

Prognosticators are predicting favorable weather conditions to launch an Atlas 5 rocket Thursday and send NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on its interplanetary journey to interrogate an asteroid and collect a surface sample for return to Earth.

NASA’s robotic InSight spacecraft, carrying a pair of European-built science instruments, successfully landed Monday on a broad, flat equatorial Martian plain named Elysium Planitia. Touchdown was confirmed at 2:54 p.m. EST (1954 GMT) to begin a science mission focused on studying the deep interior of Mars.