Live coverage: Space station crew safely returns to Earth

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.

Boeing’s work on the International Space Station, the CST-100 Starliner commercial crew capsule and NASA’s heavy-lift Space Launch System are under the umbrella of John Elbon, who leads the company’s space exploration division in Houston.

House lawmakers this week proposed to fund NASA’s human-rated lunar lander development program at less than one-fifth of the level the Trump administration wanted, but NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Wednesday the House budget bill is just the “opening salvo” in an appropriations process that now goes to the Senate.