Q&A with Tim Ellis, CEO and co-founder of Relativity Space (members only)

A small satellite assembled in Britain has been released from the International Space Station, commencing a standalone mission to test technology and techniques that could be used to capture and de-orbit space junk in low Earth orbit.

A critical test-firing of NASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket in Mississippi ended just 67 seconds after it began Saturday, well short of a planned eight-minute burn that was supposed to clear the way for the space agency to finally ship the rocket’s core stage to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch preparations.

SpaceX test-fired the Crew Dragon spacecraft’s eight SuperDraco abort engines Wednesday at Cape Canaveral, paving the way for a high-altitude rocket escape test and demonstrating engineers have apparently fixed the problem that triggered an explosion during a similar ground firing in April.