Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

A Falcon 9 rocket launching an Argentine Earth-observing satellite streaked across the skies of Southern California on Sunday night, then its booster stage returned to Vandenberg Air Force Base for an on-target landing, the first by SpaceX on the West Coast.

The 100th flight of a Falcon 9 rocket delivered 60 satellites to orbit for SpaceX’s Starlink network Tuesday night, adding another building block to a planned fleet of thousands of solar-powered space-based relay stations to beam broadband connectivity around the world.

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.