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No commercial crew test flights expected this year
NASA has released new target dates for test flights of commercial crew capsules in development by SpaceX and Boeing, with unpiloted demo missions by SpaceX's Crew Dragon and Boeing's CST-100 Starliner spaceships now scheduled for January and March, followed by crewed orbital missions in mid-2019.

Photos: Final Delta 2 launch shines before dawn in California
Flying for the 155th and final time, a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket took off from California on Sept. 15 with NASA's ICESat 2 satellite.

Leftover Delta 2 rocket to go on display at Kennedy Space Center
United Launch Alliance plans to assemble leftover parts for a Delta 2 rocket display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida alongside other icons of U.S. rocketry, the company announced Saturday soon after the final Delta 2 launch.

Early morning launch closes book on Delta 2 legacy spanning nearly 30 years
A United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket fired away from a California military base and disappeared into an overcast cloud deck Saturday on its final flight, carrying a NASA research satellite into orbit and closing the book on a nearly 30-year legacy of launches.

Engineers say goodbye to society-changing Delta 2 rocket
When the first Delta 2 rocket took off on Valentine's Day 1989, ideas like navigating by smartphone and driving robots on Mars were science fiction. More than 150 launches over the last 30 years helped change all that.
VideoLive coverage: Final Delta 2 rocket launches from California
The final flight of a Delta 2 rocket, a mainstay of the U.S. launch industry for nearly 30 years, began at 6:02 a.m. PDT (9:02 a.m. EDT; 1302 GMT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with NASA's ICESat 2 Earth science satellite.

Scientists eager to renew global ice measurements with ICESat 2 mission
The satellite awaiting launch early Saturday from California aboard the final flight of the venerable Delta 2 rocket should allow scientists to more precisely track changes in our planet's ice sheets, using six green laser beams to chart the height and slope of polar ice and glaciers, providing a key input into climate change research.

Dwindling fuel levels and a balky thruster can’t keep Kepler down
After downloading science data and bypassing a balky thruster, NASA's Kepler mission has resumed its search for planets around other stars after a two-month pause in observations, but engineers expect the spacecraft to soon run out of fuel.

Photos: SLS mobile launch platform rolls to pad 39B
The towering structure to be used for liftoffs of NASA's Space Launch System rolled from a construction site to launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this week, arriving at the seaside complex Friday for a week of fit checks.

Two NASA probes catch first glimpses of primordial targets
Two NASA spacecraft -- the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission and the New Horizons probe at the edge of the solar system -- have captured their first looks at their targets as they approach a pair of primordial relics for the first time.