Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

Engineers working on the James Webb Space Telescope, which had its launch delayed to 2020 earlier this year, recently discovered another problem during testing at the observatory’s prime contractor Northrop Grumman in Southern California.

A top secret cargo for the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency soared into orbit from Cape Canaveral at the tip of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket Friday night, successfully debuting a new solid-fueled booster design that ULA says are cheaper and easier to handle than previous strap-on motors.

With lingering uncertainty about when new U.S. commercial vehicles can regularly carry crews to the space station, NASA said Tuesday it will pay the Russian space agency more than $90 million for a round-trip ticket to the International Space Station on a Soyuz spacecraft later this year.