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

On its first launch of the year, a Russian-made Proton rocket lifted off Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with a French-built, Russian-owned communications satellite.

The launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Aug. 24 from California delivered Taiwan’s Formosat 5 Earth-imaging satellite to orbit, and the Falcon’s first stage booster returned to landing on a drone ship downrange in the Pacific Ocean.

An automated SpaceX supply ship parachuted into the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, bringing more than 3,800 pounds of cargo — including a NASA robot requiring repair — back to Earth after a month-long mission at the International Space Station.