Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

A United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket lifted off Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with the JPSS 1 weather satellite, the first in a new line of polar-orbiting observatories for NOAA.

United Launch Alliance said Thursday it is targeting Sept. 26 for the next attempt to send a classified U.S. government spy satellite into orbit aboard a Delta 4-Heavy rocket, following an abort Aug. 29 just three seconds before liftoff from Cape Canaveral.

A small communications satellite built by the German company OHB — a payload so secret that no one has officially disclosed its name or end user — is set to ride a Rocket Lab Electron launcher into orbit Saturday from New Zealand.