Q&A with Bruce Banerdt, principal investigator on NASA’s InSight mission (members only)

A powerful commercial communications satellite driven by plasma thrusters rode a reused SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster away from Cape Canaveral early Monday, climbing into orbit to connect companies, homes, airplanes and ships across much of the Eastern Hemisphere.

The Falcon 9 rocket stands on launch complex 40 on 16 April as SpaceX prepares to launch NASA’s TESS spacecraft on a mission to seek out new planets beyond our Solar System.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral on Aug. 8 with the U.S. Air Force’s fifth Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite, the second launch from Florida’s Coast in a span of less than 35 hours.