Q&A with Opher Doron, general manager of IAI’s space division (members only)

Riding nearly a million pounds of thrust, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian crewmates Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner rocketed into orbit April 9 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome en route to the International Space Station.

The satellite is designed to enhance broadband communications in India, both on the ground and during air travel. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 1:31 p.m. EST (1831 UTC).

Data collected by NASA’s MAVEN spacecraft in its first two years at Mars confirm suspicions that the solar wind is blasting away the planet’s atmosphere and helped transform the world from a warmer, wetter and potentially habitable world into the barren landscape seen today, scientists said.