Video: Falcon 9 stands at the launch pad

SpaceX’s 19th Dragon resupply mission to the International Space Station ended Tuesday with the capsule’s splashdown in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Los Angeles with nearly 3,600 pounds of cargo and experiments.

The launch vehicle Orbital ATK wants to face off against SpaceX and United Launch Alliance for lucrative U.S. military contracts would be made of two internally-built solid rocket motors and an upper stage engine supplied by Blue Origin, the entrepreneurial space firm led by Jeff Bezos, an Orbital ATK official said this week.

A solid-fueled Vega rocket has been stacked on a launch pad in French Guiana for liftoff Aug. 1 with two Israeli-built satellites — one developed in partnership with the French space agency for environmental research, and another to gather intelligence for the Italian military.