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

Signs that a launch to the International Space Station is approaching are obvious this week at Cape Canaveral, with the Atlas 5 booster rocket beginning to take shape and the commercial resupply ship heading to its propellant depot.

The Starlink 8-2 mission from the company’s West Coast launch pad features 13 more satellites boasting a Direct to Cell capability. Liftoff from Vandenberg Space Force Base happened at 9:30 p.m. PDT (12:30 a.m. EDT, 0430 UTC) on Thursday.

A network of amateur skywatchers and satellite observers have located a classified spacecraft owned by the National Reconnaissance Office, a U.S. government intelligence agency, in low Earth orbit after its launch May 1 from Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.