Time-lapse: The Falcon 9 and Crew Dragon roll to the launch pad (members only)

NASA and Northrop Grumman officials decided Friday to return a Pegasus rocket and its carrier aircraft from Hawaii to California, aborting a trip to Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean for next week’s scheduled launch of a NASA research satellite to conduct additional testing.

Blue Origin teams in West Texas are preparing for another launch of the company’s reusable New Shepard suborbital rocket Thursday to loft dozens of microgravity research payloads to the edge of space.

Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday that NASA should land astronauts near the south pole of the moon within five years “by any means necessary,” calling for “new urgency” in the U.S. space program and sounding a warning for entrenched aerospace contractors to better meet schedule and cost commitments, or else lose work to other companies.