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

Two communications satellites blasted off Sunday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, kicking off more than a half-year of novel maneuvers in orbit using plasma drive engines to position the spacecraft 22,300 miles above Earth and link the Americas, Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Two minutes after launch aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket last week, NASA astronaut Nick Hague knew something had gone badly wrong.

The National Reconnaissance Office has confirmed it will launch a payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral later this month, a mission on SpaceX’s schedule that was not publicly disclosed until recently.