Q&A with Steve Clarke, deputy associate administrator for exploration in NASA’s science division (members only)

The first launch from Cape Canaveral this year placed into orbit an Indonesian communications satellite, a privately-funded Israeli moon lander, and an experimental space surveillance microsatellite for the U.S. Air Force.

DigitalGlobe’s WorldView 4 commercial Earth observation satellite, which launched in 2016 for a planned 10-to-12-year mission, has suffered a failure in its control moment gyros and is no longer able to acquire high-resolution imagery, officials announced Monday.

Built for hauling rockets aloft to launch satellites, the world’s biggest airplane landed Saturday after a widely-anticipated test flight over California’s Mojave Desert, six months after the death of billionaire benefactor Paul Allen clouded the future of the project.