Photos: California’s predawn liftoff of Atlas 5 rocket

The liftoff of a Rocket Lab Electron booster from New Zealand with five U.S.- and German-built nanosatellites was grounded Tuesday, U.S. time, after engineers identified a problem with a motor controller on the two-stage launcher.

A Mars orbiter developed by the United Arab Emirates in partnership with U.S. scientists has been mounted on top of a Japanese H-2A rocket and its battery charged for liftoff Tuesday from the Tanegashima Space Center.

The world’s highest capacity broadband satellite, a craft that will connect rural America to high-speed Internet service, successfully rocketed into space today aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 booster.