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

By the light of a waning moon, a Russian rocket carrying a veteran cosmonaut, a French flight engineer making his first flight and America’s most experienced female astronaut blasted off and streaked smoothly into orbit Thursday, the first step in a two-day rendezvous with the International Space Station.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster descended under engine power to a floating landing platform in the Atlantic Ocean on Friday, notching the first-ever rocket landing at sea minutes after liftoff from Cape Canaveral with a supply ship hauling 3.5 tons of cargo to the International Space Station.

Two weeks into its mission of exploration on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance rover is doing an “exceptional job” and has completed its first test drive, mission managers said Friday.