Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

Two veteran NASA astronauts rocketed away from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Saturday to begin a test flight of a new commercial spaceship designed, built and owned by SpaceX.

Launching for the 20th time from the jungle of South America, a Russian-built Soyuz booster rocketed into orbit Wednesday with a new eye in the sky for the French military, the first in a series of upgrades planned for the country’s defense satellites over the next five years.

Follow the key events of the Falcon 9 rocket’s ascent to orbit 60 satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink broadband network.