Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

Mission managers are weighing a motley mix of weather models, safety criteria and astronaut workload considerations as they decide when SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft might have the best chance to launch from the Kennedy Space Center.

In a head-spinning tweet, President Trump blasted NASA on Friday for its plan to return to the moon, a plan set in motion during a 2017 White House ceremony he presided over, and forcefully endorsed in March on the president’s behalf by Vice President Mike Pence, chairman of the revitalized National Space Council.

There was a groundbreaking Friday at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 to start building the astronaut access tower to board Boeing’s CST-100 capsules atop United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets.