Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

Hobbyists who keep track of the skies with remarkable precision have found the U.S. Air Force’s mini space shuttle in its no-longer-secret orbit around the Earth.

This batch of satellites will populate what the SDA calls the Tracking Layer of its Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA) constellation in low Earth orbit. The work will be divided evenly, with each company building 18 spacecraft.

Two U.S.-built commercial communications satellites moved to their last stop on Earth on Tuesday, when an Ariane 5 rocket rolled out to a launch pad at the edge of the Amazon jungle on the eve of liftoff.