Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

The U.S. Air Force on Thursday demolished towers once used to assemble Delta 2 rockets at Cape Canaveral for missions to Mars, four dozen flights to deploy the GPS navigation network, and numerous launches with scientific, commercial and military payloads.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Sunday from Cape Canaveral with 143 small satellites, a record number of spacecraft on a single mission, giving a boost to startup space companies and stressing the U.S. military’s tracking network charged with sorting out the locations of all objects in orbit.

Helium leaks and thruster issues prompted NASA to extend their stay aboard the space station indefinitely — Wednesday marked their 35th day in orbit — while engineers carry out tests and analysis to better understand what caused the problems and to make sure the spacecraft can safely being Wilmore and Williams home.