The Soyuz MS-02 spacecraft being prepared for launch in September. A problem with the spacecraft found only after it was placed inside its payload fairing has delayed its launch until the end of October.

NASA has quietly signed a contract with Boeing for up to five additional Soyuz seats to provide for both additional U.S. crewmembers on the International Space Station and margin for commercial crew delays.

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Jeff Foust has more than a decade of experience writing about space policy, entrepreneurial ventures and regulatory affairs. In 2001, he established spacetoday.net to aggregate and summarize the day's space-related news stories. In 2003, he started The...