Watch our interview with two International Space Station astronauts

Three Chinese astronaut rocketed into orbit in pursuit of the Tiangong space station at 9:31 p.m. EDT Monday (0131 UTC Tuesday). The crew blasted off from the Jiuquan launch base in northwestern China on a Long March 2F rocket.

Work on Boeing’s CST-100 commercial crew capsule will ramp up at the program’s new home base in Florida this year, with construction of a crew access tower at the Atlas 5 rocket’s launch pad underway and assembly of a spacecraft test article due to begin in a converted space shuttle hangar.

In a breath-taking display at daybreak Wednesday, an Atlas rocket powered an enormous U.S. Navy satellite into space to close the last remaining gap and give global reach to the military’s new mobile communications system.