Q&A with Keith Gendreau, principal investigator of the first X-ray space communications experiment (members only)

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral on Aug. 8 with the U.S. Air Force’s fifth Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite, the second launch from Florida’s Coast in a span of less than 35 hours.

SpaceX teams at Cape Canaveral raised a Falcon 9 rocket vertical at the Complex 40 launch pad and performed a static fire test Friday. The Falcon 9 will be used to launch a commercial geostationary communications satellite no earlier than Monday at 7:10 p.m. EST (0010 GMT Tuesday).

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, powered by a previously-flown booster, lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 6:27 p.m. EDT (2227 GMT) Thursday. The mission, which lofted the SES 10 communications satellite, marks the first time SpaceX has reused the first stage of one of its Falcon 9 launchers.