Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

In a mission marking the end of an era, NASA astronaut and former virus hunter Kate Rubins, using NASA’s last currently contracted seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, rocketed into orbit Wednesday with two cosmonaut crewmates on a record-setting flight to the International Space Station.

SpaceX and United Launch Alliance expect to resume launches with little or no delay after Hurricane Irma veered west of Cape Canaveral last weekend, sparing the launch base from the storm’s most extreme damage.

Nearly seven months aboard the International Space Station may be an extreme case of social distancing and isolation, but astronaut Jessica Meir says she expects to feel more isolated than ever when she returns next week to a planet in the grip of the coronavirus.