Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

A Chinese communications satellite heading for geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator lifted off Thursday from the Xichang space base in southwestern China aboard a Long March 3B rocket on the first space launch of 2019.

NASA awarded Northrop Grumman a contract worth as much as $84.5 million earlier this month to supply rocket motors for a first-of-its-kind launch vehicle to fire a capsule of rock samples off of Mars on a journey back to Earth.

The launch from Cape Canaveral of a top secret spy satellite for the U.S. government was aborted at the last moment early Saturday as its United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket ignited three main engines, a dramatic cutoff of the countdown that will delay the mission by at least one week.