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

Lighting up the pre-dawn sky, a Soyuz rocket roared to life and streaked into orbit Tuesday carrying a Russian cosmonaut and two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station, boosting the lab’s crew back to six and the U.S. complement to four NASA-sponsored astronauts.

Axiom Space, a Houston-based company with plans to develop a commercial outpost in space, announced Thursday it has signed a contract with SpaceX to ferry a professional astronaut and three paying passengers to the International Space Station as soon as next year on the first fully private human spaceflight mission to Earth orbit.

China’s space agency released the first pictures from the Zhurong Mars rover rover Wednesday, showing the six-wheel robot ready to drive down a ramp from its landing platform to begin exploring the Red Planet.