Live coverage: Delta 2 launches

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 1:47 p.m. PDT (4:47 p.m. EDT; 2047 GMT) Monday with a classified satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency.

SpaceX launched its fifth Falcon 9 rocket in 22 days on Saturday, beginning a mission to deploy 52 more Starlink internet satellites and two rideshare payloads for Capella Space and Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems. Liftoff from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida occurred at 6:56 p.m. EDT (2256 GMT), and SpaceX successfully landed the first stage on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

The next American polar-orbiting weather satellite that will feed long-range forecasts and track environmental trends has slipped into space-like testing ahead of launch.