Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

Three days after a trio of space station fliers returned to Earth, a Russian cosmonaut, a German flight engineer and a NASA physician-astronaut rocketed into orbit aboard another Soyuz spacecraft Wednesday, setting off after the lab complex in the first step of a two-day rendezvous.

Tucked inside a shipping crate aboard an Air Force C-5 transport aircraft, the Navy’s next mobile communications satellite has flown from California to Florida in preparation for liftoff this summer.

The heavy-lift version of the United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan rocket will sell for half the price of today’s Delta 4-Heavy and a third of the price tag for the previous Titan 4, while offering a substantial increase in performance for nation’s largest defense spacecraft.