Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

Using a new, uprated main engine for the first time on a rocket of its kind, a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Medium+ vehicle will soar into space Wednesday night carrying a $566 million Air Force communications satellite.

Running more than three months late, a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket took off Thursday and carried a U.S. government spy satellite into an orbit thousands of miles above Earth in the first mission from the newly-renamed Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.

The nation’s existing Atlas and Delta launch sites are vying for a future when United Launch Alliance completes its modernization with a new rocket system and downsizing to one pad on each coast.