SpaceX conducts engine test fire for communications satellite launch (members only)

Arianespace has opened the year with two contracts to deliver commercial television and broadband satellites to orbit aboard Ariane 5 rockets launched from French Guiana in 2018 and 2019.

A team of SpaceX engineers is building a prototype of the spaceship Elon Musk hopes will one day carry people and cargo deep into the solar system, and it could begin low-altitude testing next year, kicking off a multi-step test campaign before eventually going into space, then perhaps the moon or Mars.

Working amid coronavirus restrictions, engineers readied a Soyuz spacecraft for launch Thursday to ferry two Russian cosmonauts and Navy SEAL-turned-astronaut Chris Cassidy to the International Space Station.