Video replay: Parker Solar Probe launches atop Delta 4-Heavy

NASA declared the Spitzer Space Telescope’s 16-year mission complete Thursday after sending final commands for the spacecraft to enter hibernation as it drifts farther from Earth.

SpaceX’s launch team loaded liquid propellants into the company’s first upgraded Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket Friday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and the countdown rehearsal culminated in a brief ignition of the launcher’s nine Merlin main engines on the launch pad.

Four days after a Soyuz ferry craft brought three space station fliers down to a frigid landing in Kazakhstan, three fresh crew members are poised for launch early Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to boost the lab’s crew back to six.