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

A Soyuz rocket took off from French Guiana on Friday with Hispasat 36W-1, a communications satellite designed to connect Latin America and Europe with video, data and cellular phone services.

One of the final pieces for the first test flight of NASA’s huge Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket recently arrived at the Kennedy Space Center, joining other elements already at the Florida spaceport awaiting shipment of the SLS core stage once it completes testing at a NASA facility in Mississippi.

Taking a lesson from a launch mishap last June, SpaceX wrote coded commands for future Dragon cargo capsules to deploy their parachutes for an emergency landing in the event of rocket failures, starting with Friday’s resupply flight to the International Space Station.