Photos: Delta 4 rocket fires off the pad before sunset

On its second test flight Tuesday, Astra’s privately-developed small satellite launcher ran out of fuel seconds before reaching the velocity needed to enter orbit but exceeded the company’s expectations with an otherwise-successful climb into space from Kodiak Island, Alaska.

Boeing said Wednesday it has turned down an offer from Aerojet Rocketdyne to buy United Launch Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture that operates the Atlas and Delta rocket fleets.

Less than two weeks after its launch from Cape Canaveral, a new NOAA weather observatory has boosted itself into a circular orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator, and officials have renamed it GOES-17 ahead of a test series before it enters service later this year.