Video: Falcon 9 fires up engines for static fire test (members only)

The Obama administration’s fiscal 2016 budget includes $18.5 billion for NASA — a half-billion-dollar increase — that continues development of a new mega-rocket and capsule for deep space exploration and significantly boosts funding for commercial spacecraft to ferry crews to and from the space station, agency officials said Monday.

United Launch Alliance’s first full-scale Vulcan booster with two Blue Origin BE-4 engines arrived at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Saturday, the first time in more than a decade that a core stage from a new family of orbital-class rockets has rolled into the Florida launch facility.

The U.S. military’s mini space shuttle successfully returned to Earth today, touching down on Runway 15 at the Shuttle Landing Facility after spending 718 days in space.