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The successful deployment of a small remote sensing satellite Wednesday set a new record for Chinese orbital launch attempts in a single year at 40 missions, surpassing a mark set in 2018 and 2020.

Astronauts Raja Chari, Tom Marshburn, Matthias Maurer, and Kayla Barron flew from their home base in Houston to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Tuesday to begin their final few days of launch preparations before blasting off on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for the International Space Station Sunday.

NASA managers at Kennedy Space Center gave the go-ahead Monday to continue preparations for a Halloween launch of four astronauts to the International Space Station, pending more analysis of a modification to the toilet system on the crew’s SpaceX-owned capsule.

Blue Origin and Sierra Space announced Monday they are leading development of a commercial space complex named Orbital Reef that officials said will be operational by the time NASA and its partners retire the International Space Station.

China launched the classified Shijian 21 satellite Saturday on what government officials described as an experimental “space debris mitigation” mission.