Video: Liftoff of Atlas 5 on space station cargo mission

Kicking off United Launch Alliance’s ambitious 2016 with as many as 15 launches planned for the U.S. military, intelligence community, NASA and commercial clients, an Atlas 5 rocket will thunder to orbit Friday to deploy the last satellite in the current generation of GPS navigation spacecraft.

Russian launch crews on two continents are putting the final touches on a pair of Soyuz rockets scheduled to blast off less than two hours apart Friday — one carrying a three-man crew to the space station, and another boosting two European navigation satellites into orbit from the Amazon jungle.

An early bird rocket launch from the Florida spaceport will take to the skies before dawn Thursday when an Atlas 5 lofts a classified U.S. government satellite.