Photos: Falcon takes flight

A Falcon 9 rocket booked to launch a commercial communications satellite for Hispasat, a Madrid-based telecom company, fired its nine main engines late Tuesday night at Cape Canaveral for a pre-flight hold-down test.

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral on Wednesday night with the U.S. Air Force’s eighth Wideband Global SATCOM communications satellite, lighting up the sky in these images taken from the nearby Kennedy Space Center press site.

Forecasters predict mostly cloudy conditions and a chance of light rain for Tuesday morning’s scheduled takeoff of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with a space station-bound supply ship, with a 40 percent chance weather could prevent liftoff during an instantaneous predawn launch opportunity.