Q&A with Opher Doron, general manager of IAI’s space division (members only)

SpaceX’s next Falcon Heavy mission, set for April 18 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will launch a powerhouse bus-sized broadband satellite for Viasat into a high-altitude circular geostationary orbit, a demanding flight profile that will require disposal of all three of the rocket’s reusable boosters.

SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Sunday evening, following a Saturday night scrub. Liftoff of the Starlink 6-37 mission occurred at 8:52 p.m. EST (0152 UTC) on Sunday, Jan. 14.

Under a brilliant moon, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket flashed to life and vaulted away from Cape Canaveral late Sunday, boosting the European Space Agency’s $1.5 billion Solar Orbiter probe out of Earth’s gravitational grip toward a multi-year voyage around the sun that will give scientists their first glimpse of the star’s poles.