NASA's DART spacecraft and the 2nd stage booster captured 'captured about 10 hours after launch," by the Virtual Telescope Project. Credit: Space.com | footage courtesy: Gianluca Masi / Virtual Telesc

One of these ride-along NASA efforts is the Athena EPIC (Economical Payload Integration Cost) SmallSat, which will demonstrate a new way of more efficiently placing remote-sensing (or rather, Earth-observing) instruments into orbit.

Two NASA satellites rocketed into orbit from California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday, commencing a $170 million mission to study a phenomenon of space physics that has eluded researchers since the dawn of the Space Age.

Late-night rocket launch window! Weather permitting and depending on cloud cover, SpaceX Falcon 9 could be visible in the Volusia County sky this week

The next satellites SpaceX helps to deliver to orbit from Vandenberg won't be its own, but rather two of NASA's on a scientific mission.

July 22 (UPI) -- NASA's TRACERS mission is set to launch on Tuesday on the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from California. The TRACERS mission aims to "help understand magnetic reconnection and its effects in Earth's atmosphere."

About 3,870 employees have applied to depart NASA over two rounds through the Trump administration's deferred resignation program, the agency disclosed.

The launch takes place on a milestone date, marking 20 years since the STS-114 space shuttle mission took off from Kennedy Space Center Pad 39B. The launch of Discovery on the STS-114 mission on July 26, 2005, marked the return to flight for the space shuttle after the Columbia tragedy investigation.