Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft will likely return to Earth in August to wrap up a test flight to the International Space Station with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken, a senior space agency official said Tuesday.

SpaceX and its visionary founder Elon Musk win the lion’s share of public attention in the commercial rocket arena, with dramatic, increasingly routine booster landings and spectacular stunts like the launch of Musk’s Tesla Roadster on the maiden flight of the company’s new Falcon Heavy rocket last month.

Putting new technology in the sky that will beam high-speed Internet to rural America, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral today to deploy the commercial EchoStar 19 satellite. Follow the ascent in our live journal.