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

Now in an elliptical orbit around the sun, the Tesla Roadster launched atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket Tuesday during the powerful booster’s maiden flight was expected to pass beyond the moon’s orbit overnight Wednesday and reach the orbit of Mars in July as it puts Earth in its rear view mirror, analysts said.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket stands atop Space Launch Complex 3-East at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on the eve of Friday’s WorldView 4 mission.

A Falcon 9 rocket loaded with 58 more broadband relay nodes for SpaceX’s Starlink Internet network took off Tuesday from Cape Canaveral, bringing the total number of Starlink craft launched since May 2019 to 653 satellites.