Photos: More Atlas 5 launch shots

Two Chinese Beidou navigation satellites launched Thursday, growing the country’s home-grown space-based GPS network nearly 14,000 miles above Earth.

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket is awaiting liftoff with a classified U.S. government spy satellite at Vandenberg Air Force Base’s historic Space Launch Complex-6, a picturesque rocket facility that was once intended to support launches of military astronauts and space shuttles.

Blue Origin launched its New Shepard suborbital rocket to the edge of space Tuesday from the company’s remote desert test site in West Texas on an experimental flight to test precision lunar landing technology for NASA.