Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

A Northrop Grumman Antares rocket launch April 17 from Virginia’s Eastern Shore marked the start of the 11th Cygnus resupply mission to the International Space Station.

NASA has shut down a spacecraft that measured the amount of solar energy entering Earth’s atmosphere for 17 years, more than three times the mission’s original design life.

A critical test-firing of NASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket in Mississippi ended just 67 seconds after it began Saturday, well short of a planned eight-minute burn that was supposed to clear the way for the space agency to finally ship the rocket’s core stage to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch preparations.