Shuttle Atlantis unwrapped ahead of public debut

Watch a 4K video replay of Thursday’s Falcon 9 launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

On its second flight, SpaceX’s mammoth Falcon Heavy rocket hurled an Arabsat communications satellite the size of a school bus nearly one-quarter the way to the moon Thursday, days after NASA’s administrator identified the privately-developed rocket as a backup to the agency’s behind-schedule Space Launch System for sending astronauts back to the lunar surface.

All NASA centers and facilities will begin a mandatory telework policy for agency and contractor employees effective immediately, except for “mission-essential” personnel, to combat the threat from the coronavirus pandemic, officials announced Tuesday.