Q&A with Andrew Driesman, project manager for Parker Solar Probe (members only)

Five years after missing a shot to enter orbit at Venus, Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft completed a critical rocket burn late Sunday in a bid to salvage the research mission and become the only space probe operating around Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor.

The capsule flying the Ax-4 mission was originally set to launch in support of the Crew-10 mission to the ISS, which launched in mid-March.

Orbital ATK’s Antares rocket will deliver the commercial Cygnus supply ship to an orbit with an altitude between 117 miles (189 kilometers) and 184 miles (296 kilometers) within about nine minutes of liftoff Saturday from Virginia’s Eastern Shore.