Photos: GPS 2F-12 navigation spacecraft readied for launch

A Chinese Long March 3C rocket boosted a fresh satellite into orbit Sunday to join the country’s Beidou navigation system, deploying the craft into an elliptical orbit ranging more than 22,000 miles above Earth.

Two key pieces of hardware needed for NASA’s next Mars rover — an Atlas rocket booster and sterile components of the rover’s sample collection system — recently arrived at Cape Canaveral ahead of the mission’s scheduled launch July 17.

The launch of the seventh Wideband Global SATCOM military communications satellite aboard a Delta 4 rocket booster occurred tonight at 8:07 p.m. EDT (0007 GMT) from Cape Canaveral.