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

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket at 7:29 a.m. PDT (10:29 a.m. EDT; 1429 UTC) Sunday from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California with 10 missile tracking and data relay satellites for the U.S. military’s Space Development Agency. The launch occurred three days after SpaceX aborted the first launch attempt at T-minus 3 seconds to examine data from one of the Falcon 9’s main engines.

On the cusp of advancing U.S. weather forecasting, a powerful new satellite was shipped from its Denver factory to the Cape today in preparation for launch in November.

Giulio Ranzo is the chief executive of Avio, the Italian company responsible for building the Vega rocket. Ranzo recently spoke with Spaceflight Now about the Vega rocket’s increasing launch rate, the debut of the new Vega C booster in 2020, and future plans to evolve the Vega design to compete with commercial microsatellite launchers.