Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

Departing Cape Canaveral at 8:37 a.m. EDT Thursday, the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted a classified national security satellite into orbit for deployment.

Veteran Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, flanked by Canadian flight engineer David Saint-Jacques and NASA astronaut Anne McClain, launched toward the International Space Station at 6:31 a.m. EST (1131 GMT) Monday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, the first crew launch for Russia’s space program since a Soyuz booster failure led to the emergency landing of a two-man crew in October. The Soyuz MS-11 spacecraft docked with the station at 12:33 p.m. EST (1733 GMT).

NASA put out a call in 2024 for proposals from industry and NASA centers for how to retrieve samples from the Martian surface in a cheaper way and on a shorter timeline.