Photos: X-37B gallery archive

An antenna-covered communications spacecraft that will bring more bandwidth and capacity to the U.S. military’s global information grid than any single satellite ever before was successfully launched Wednesday atop a Delta 4 rocket.

Launching the Wideband Global SATCOM 8 satellite for the U.S. military, a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket thundered away from Cape Canaveral at 6:53 p.m. EST (2353 GMT).

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.