Video: New Horizons phone home will confirm health of spacecraft

NASA officials plan to replace the Mars 2020 rover’s heat shield after engineers discovered a crack in the structure earlier this month, but managers anticipate no delay in the mission’s scheduled launch date a little more than two years away.

Northrop Grumman test-fired a five-segment solid-fueled booster for NASA’s Space Launch System Wednesday at the company’s test facility in Promontory, Utah.

The slide system differs notably from the slide wire basket system used over at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. NASA officials said pad 40 will be ready for astronaut launches this year.