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

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Saturday night from Vandenberg Space Force Base near Lompoc, Calif., It put 24 satellites into near Earth orbit in polar areas.

SpaceX is also gearing up for NASA’s upcoming Crew-11 mission launch, which will carry astronauts Zena Cardman, Mike Fincke, Kimiya Yui, and OlegPlatonov to the International Space Station for a science mission. The liftoff for this mission is targeted for 9:39 PM IST on July 31.

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.

Looking for something to do this weekend? Arizonans could catch the first Starlink satellite launch in more than a week from neighboring California.