SpaceX postponed the launch of its fifth resupply mission to the International Space Station on Tuesday morning due to a problem with the second stage of its Falcon 9 rocket. The next window for a launch is on Friday. The flight will mark the first time the commercial rocket company will try to bring a rocket back for a soft landing, an important step toward cheaper, quick-turnaround space flights. SpaceX will try to land the booster rocket on a drone platform in the Atlantic after it sends the Dragon capsule toward the space station with 5,200 pounds of cargo.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
5 museum-grade cartoons about Trump's Smithsonian purgeCartoons Artists take on institutional rebranding, exhibit interpretation, and more
-
Settling the West Bank: a death knell for a Palestine state?In the Spotlight The reality on the ground is that the annexation of the West Bank is all but a done deal
-
Crossword: August 23, 2025The Week's daily crossword puzzle
-
Hurricanes are not exclusive to Earth. They can happen in space.Under the radar These storms may cause navigational problems
-
Rabbits with 'horns' sighted across Coloradospeed read These creatures are infected with the 'mostly harmless' Shope papilloma virus
-
Lithium shows promise in Alzheimer's studySpeed Read Potential new treatments could use small amounts of the common metal
-
Scientists discover cause of massive sea star die-offSpeed Read A bacteria related to cholera has been found responsible for the deaths of more than 5 billion sea stars
-
'Thriving' ecosystem found 30,000 feet underseaSpeed Read Researchers discovered communities of creatures living in frigid, pitch-black waters under high pressure
-
Answers to how life on Earth began could be stuck on MarsUnder the Radar Donald Trump plans to scrap Nasa's Mars Sample Return mission – stranding test tubes on the Red Planet and ceding potentially valuable information to China
-
New York plans first nuclear plant in 36 yearsSpeed Read The plant, to be constructed somewhere in upstate New York, will produce enough energy to power a million homes
-
The treasure trove of platinum on the moonUnder the radar This kind of bounty could lead to commercial exploitation
