Q&A with Sara Seager, deputy director of science on NASA’s TESS mission (members only)

The quartet is set to liftoff from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, July 31. Their Dragon spacecraft, Endeavour, will fly for a record-setting sixth time.

Curt Blake, president of Spaceflight Industries, spoke with Spaceflight Now’s Stephen Clark on Sept. 29 about the Seattle-based company’s purchase of a dedicated rideshare mission on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, and various trends and strategies in play in the small satellite launch market.

The man in charge of the Orion crew capsule program at Lockheed Martin is a lifelong veteran of the space program, beginning his tenure at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in the late 1970s before taking posts in Washington and joining Lockheed Martin to lead the company’s work on the nation’s new spacecraft for journeys beyond Earth orbit.