Live coverage: SpaceX Falcon Heavy launches NASA’s Psyche on mission to a metal asteroid

NASA has selected Axiom Space, a Houston-based startup partnering with Boeing and other aerospace contractors, to attach a commercial habitat to the International Space Station and begin constructing an orbiting complex that the company says could ultimately replace the international research outpost.

NASA has extended development agreements with SpaceX and Sierra Nevada Corp. past a March 31 deadline, giving the companies more time to complete delayed tests on commercial spacecraft intended to one day ferry astronauts into space.

After a lull in launches from America’s primary West Coast rocket base, SpaceX is set to resume a regular cadence of missions from Vandenberg Air Force Base as soon as July to deploy hundreds of Starlink internet satellites into polar orbits, SpaceX’s president and industry officials said.