Q&A with Emiliano Kargieman, founder and CEO of Satellogic (members only)

The twin 177-foot-tall solid-fueled boosters for the first flight of NASA’s Space Launch System have been stacked inside the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Kennedy Space Center to await arrival of the rocket’s cryogenic core stage, which is set for a second engine test on a firing stand in Mississippi later this month.

A European Vega launcher failed Wednesday night around two minutes after liftoff from French Guiana and fell into the Atlantic Ocean, destroying an Airbus-built surveillance satellite for the United Arab Emirates.

George Ricker, an astronomer and pioneer in space imaging sensor ships at MIT, leads the science team for NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.