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

Watch a time-lapse video of the Falcon 9 rocket going upright at launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center as SpaceX prepares for the launch of the seventh batch of Starlink broadband Internet satellites.

A senior NASA official said Tuesday that the Space Launch System, a huge heavy-lift rocket years behind schedule, could launch astronauts on a moon landing mission in 2024 on just its third flight to meet a goal announced last month by Vice President Mike Pence, while commercial companies will be entrusted with more responsibility to develop a lunar lander and a modest mini-space station, or Gateway, in lunar orbit.

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is spearheading a 10-year plan to improve detection of near-Earth asteroids and comets that could crash into Earth and to expand research into possible countermeasures to deflect an incoming body if detected in time, officials said Wednesday.