Video: Falcon 9 test-fired before fourth Starlink launch (members only)

The Perseverance rover’s sterilized sample tubes — designed to seal Martian rock and sediment for eventual return to Earth — are installed on the spacecraft as teams at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center prepare to enclose the rover inside the payload shroud of its Atlas 5 launcher for liftoff July 20.

Carrying a Cygnus supply ship bound for the International Space Station, an Orbital ATK Antares rocket lifted off Monday from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at Wallops Island, Virginia.

Citing schedule concerns over price benefits, Iridium announced Thursday it will launch its next 20 satellites on a pair of previously-flown Falcon 9 boosters from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, beginning with a Dec. 22 mission.