Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

The first Boeing Starliner spacecraft designed to fly to the International Space Station rolled out of the Commercial Crew and Cargo Processing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, Nov. 21.

United Launch Alliance and SpaceX beat out Northrop Grumman and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin for billions of dollars in U.S. military rocket contracts, and will share the load in launching the Pentagon’s highest-priority national security space missions through 2027, officials announced Friday.

SpaceX successfully deployed 60 more Starlink satellites into orbit Wednesday following launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8:16 a.m. EDT (1216 GMT). One of the nine Merlin engines on the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage shut down prematurely during ascent, but the launcher was still able to reach the mission’s targeted orbit.