Q&A with Marc Rayman, chief engineer on NASA’s Dawn mission (members only)

Sara Seager is an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at MIT, and she serves as deputy science director on NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which aims to find planets around stars relatively close to the sun, searching for worlds that are ideal follow-up targets for missions like the James Webb Space Telescope.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral with a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office at 5:32 p.m. EST (2232 GMT) Friday. The launcher debuted new Northrop Grumman-built solid rocket boosters.

Ground controllers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed Thursday the Cassini spacecraft survived its first trip between Saturn and its rings, the closest any probe has ever come to the planet.