Photos: Predawn launch of Atlas 5

A geodetic surveying satellite for the Russian military successfully launched Friday aboard a Rockot booster — a modified ballistic missile — from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

The main engine rumbling to life. Ice shards breaking free. The rocket lumbering off the pad. The battle against gravity being won once again. That was the scene as the Atlas 5 took flight to cap a generation of Global Positioning System satellites.

Watch this replay of Monday’s liftoff of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, followed by touchdown of the booster’s first stage on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean.