Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

An Ariane 5 rocket launch Tuesday added four more navigation satellites to Europe’s Galileo network with an on-target deployment following liftoff from a jungle spaceport on the northeastern coast of South America.

An experimental microsatellite built and owned by Astro Digital, a California-based company, rode Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket into orbit at 9:22 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0122 GMT Thursday) from New Zealand.

With construction already underway at Kennedy Space Center’s launch pad 39A on facilities for SpaceX’s next-generation Starship vehicle, another new fixture could soon rise at the seaside launch complex to satisfy U.S. military requirements to vertically integrate sensitive top secret spy satellites with Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.