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

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, fueled and buttoned up for liftoff Aug. 11 on the first mission to fly through the sun’s corona, arrived at its launch pad at Cape Canaveral early Tuesday after a convoy trip from a nearby fueling and test facility.

The Starlink 6-103 mission was the 10th orbital flight from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in 2026. Liftoff from pad 40 happened at 2:59:40 a.m. EST (0759:40 UTC) on Monday, Feb. 16.

The core piece of NASA’s first huge Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket designed to carry astronauts back to the moon fired its main engines more than eight minutes Thursday in southern Mississippi, acing a crucial test before the it ships to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida to prepare for liftoff.