Launch
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ULA plans to ring in the weekend with Friday evening launch
United Launch Alliance ground crews are putting the final touches on a Delta 4 rocket scheduled for blastoff Friday evening from Cape Canaveral with a U.S. Air Force communications satellite.

Crew of Soyuz launch abort set for second try
Five months after a frightening launch abort, cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and NASA flight engineer Tyler "Nick" Hague, along with first time flier Christina Koch, are set for liftoff Thursday on a six-hour flight to the International Space Station, boosting the lab's crew back to six.

Facing more delays, NASA opens door to launching lunar mission with commercial rockets
In a major shift, NASA is considering using two commercial launchers to send an unpiloted Orion crew capsule and its European-built service module on a test flight around the moon next year, maintaining the lunar test flight's schedule despite fresh delays in the development of the multibillion-dollar Space Launch System that jeopardize the heavy-lifter's 2020 inaugural flight, the agency's administrator said in a congressional hearing Wednesday.

Soyuz booster rolled out in Kazakhstan for next space station crew launch
A Soyuz rocket arrived at a historic launch pad in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, where ground crews lifted the booster vertical to begin final preparations for liftoff Thursday with two Americans and one Russian heading for the International Space Station.
VideoChinese TV broadcasting satellite launched on 300th Long March rocket
A Chinese television broadcasting satellite lifted off Saturday aboard a Long March 3B booster, the 300th orbital launch by the country's Long March rocket family since 1970.

SpaceX, ULA win military contracts, Air Force renames EELV program
United Launch Alliance and SpaceX recently won contracts worth $739 million to send six missions into orbit for the U.S. military, and the Air Force has announced a new title for its flagship launcher program, dropping "expendable" from the name in a new era of reusable rockets.

Photos: SpaceX launches crew capsule demonstration flight
SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft, designed to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station, fired into orbit on top of a Falcon 9 rocket Saturday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

OneWeb announced as customer for inaugural Ariane 6 launch
Arianespace has announced OneWeb, the broadband Internet provider seeking to deploy more than 600 satellites into low Earth orbit, as the launch customer for the inaugural flight of the new Ariane 6 rocket in 2020.

Military satellite joined with Delta 4 rocket at Cape Canaveral
The addition of a U.S. Air Force communications satellite has capped the assembly of a 218-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket at Cape Canaveral set for liftoff the evening of March 13.

SpaceX launches first Crew Dragon ferry ship
Opening a new era in American spaceflight, a Falcon 9 rocket streaked into space early Saturday, boosting the company's first Crew Dragon spacecraft into orbit on an unpiloted test flight, the first launch of a commercially developed capsule intended to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.