July 26, 1971: 45th anniversary of Apollo 15

A two-stage Northrop Grumman Antares booster lifted off Nov. 2 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport on Virginia’s Eastern Shore with a Cygnus cargo freighter on the way to the International Space Station.

Two British-built reconnaissance satellites, one designed to test new radar imaging technology and another to collect high-resolution optical imagery, arrived in orbit Sunday after a successful liftoff aboard an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

Rocket Lab, a company eyeing a market to launch small satellites, said Monday that bad weather at its privately-operated launch base on New Zealand’s North Island kept a commercial Electron booster from lifting off on its maiden test flight for the second day in a row.