Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

SpaceX’s first Crew Dragon spacecraft, fixed to the forward end of a Falcon 9 rocket, emerged Thursday from the company’s hangar at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the quarter-mile journey to its launch mount at pad 39A, where liftoff is scheduled early Saturday on a critical test flight before astronauts strap into the ship later this year.

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket went through a practice countdown and fueling exercise today to prepare for its Dec. 7 liftoff to deliver a U.S. military communications satellite into space.

The James Webb Space Telescope is at risk of another launch delay beyond the mission’s current target launch date in March 2021, the Government Accountability Office said this week.