Live coverage: Crew-8 splashdown off the coast of Pensacola, Florida

Engineers plan to test small modifications to a payload shroud on a European Ariane 5 rocket launch Friday from French Guiana, gathering data on changes introduced to meet stringent criteria for the launch of the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope in late 2021.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket with the next batch of 60 Starlink internet satellites at 3:13 a.m. EST (0813 GMT) Thursday from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The reusable first stage successfully landed on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

NASA’s Mars Opportunity rover landed on Mars 15 years ago this week, but the long-lived robot remains out of action in the wake of a global dust storm last summer that caused it to lose power. Engineers are still trying to contact the spacecraft, sending commands and listening for any sort of response, but hopes are fading, a senior manager said Friday.