Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

Boeing specialists working inside a former space shuttle hangar in Florida started fueling the company’s first spaceflight-ready Starliner capsule this week ahead of the ship’s rollout to its launch pad later this month. The fueling milestone is a major step in the Starliner launch campaign, and comes after engineers concluded that human error led to a parachute deployment malfunction during a crew capsule abort test Monday.

China launched the capstone satellite for the Beidou navigation constellation Tuesday, adding the final piece to a global network to rival the U.S. military’s GPS fleet providing positioning, timing, and search and rescue services.

With its payload shroud filled with multiple U.S. Air Force satellites heading for a high-altitude perch over the equator, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Saturday at 7:13 p.m. EDT (2313 GMT) in its most powerful configuration with five strap-on solid-fueled boosters.