Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

A Russian Proton rocket lifted off at 1017 GMT (6:17 a.m. EDT) Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodorme in Kazakhstan. After a marathon 16-hour-long launch sequence, the Proton and its Breeze M upper stage will deploy the Eutelsat 5 West B video broadcast satellite and a robotic satellite servicing payload aiming to attempt the first-ever docking in geosynchronous orbit.

Air Force meteorologists on this Good Friday have released their initial forecast for Tuesday’s launch of a cargo ship to the International Space Station, predicting favorable conditions to fly the Atlas 5 booster on a commercial mission.

The ever-dependable Delta 2 rocket continued its flawless service to NASA and Earth sciences Saturday with the launch of a $916 million environmental probe focused on producing global maps of soil moisture from space.