Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

China launched a Long March 2D rocket Saturday with a satellite Chinese officials claimed will study the space environment and conduct technology demonstrations, less than two days after a Long March 4B rocket took off from a different launch site with an Earth-imaging payload.

The next-to-last Delta 2 rocket is being stacked at its California launch site to take flight in January to put a civilian weather satellite into polar orbit.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stood atop historic launch pad 39A Saturday afternoon as teams counted down to liftoff with 52 more Starlink internet satellites  and two hitchhiker payloads.