The agency says that if SpaceX takes some 75 actions to limit environmental hazards, the company can continue that expansion and its application for a launch license for its Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy rocket booster.

At the time, NASA engineers at Marshall told Pence they were confident the SLS rocket would make its debut flight in 2020, setting up a schedule to allow astronauts to return to the moon by 2024.

Today’s launch marked the culmination of nearly a decade of work by engineers at Virgin Orbit , which is one of two rocket companies founded by billionaire Richard Branson .

Meanwhile, the spent Centaur rocket continued on its merry way through space and was pretty much forgotten—at least until August of this year, when astronomers using the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) in Hawaii spotted a mysterious object in a solar orbit that was due to pass close by Earth.