Q&A with Alvaro Gimenez, ESA’s director of science

NASA is close to deciding whether to spend an extra $150 million to send the InSight lander to Mars in 2018 or cancel the mission after an instrument problem made the spacecraft miss a launch opportunity this year, with a verdict on the project’s future expected within weeks, officials said.

SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk will unveil his plans for human missions to Mars on Tuesday in a presentation at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. Watch the speech live at 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT).

Four satellites fastened to the top of an Ariane 5 rocket will grow Europe’s space-based Galileo navigation network Thursday morning with a launch from the South American jungle.