Q&A with Guglielmo Aglietti, RemoveDebris principal investigator (members only)

SpaceX has set the first launch of a “flight-proven” Falcon 9 rocket for Thursday evening after running the booster through a hold-down engine firing Monday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

A Russian Soyuz rocket topped with two European Galileo navigation satellites soared into orbit before dawn Tuesday, vaulting through low clouds hanging over its jungle launch base in French Guiana.

Kurt Eberly, who helps lead the Antares rocket program at Orbital ATK, recently spoke with Spaceflight Now about the launcher’s return-to-flight with newly-built engines later this year.