Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

SpaceX’s next Falcon Heavy mission, set for April 18 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, will launch a powerhouse bus-sized broadband satellite for Viasat into a high-altitude circular geostationary orbit, a demanding flight profile that will require disposal of all three of the rocket’s reusable boosters.

The 100th rocket in America’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program, the current fleet of boosters used by the nation to get its critical assets into space, was rolled to the pad Friday morning for a vital mission on Saturday.

The next flight of an Ariane 5 rocket, previously set for next week, has been delayed to no earlier than July 30 to review the readiness components it has in common with the Vega rocket after a launch failure earlier this month.