Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

United Launch Alliance teams at Cape Canaveral hoisted a Centaur upper stage on top of an Atlas 5 rocket Friday at launch pad 41, completing the initial build-up of the launch vehicle slated to carry Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule into space in December on an unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station.

Russian officials postponed the planned launch of a Proton rocket with an X-ray astronomy satellite Friday until no earlier than July 12 resolve a problem with an inadvertently drained battery on the vehicle.

Ground controllers have lost contact with an Indian communications satellite launched last week, and Indian news reports suggest engineers believe the spacecraft’s power system is at fault.