Photos: Atlas 5 rocket aims for International Space Station

Blue Origin submitted a proposal late last year in what’s expected to be a four-way competition for U.S. Air Force funding to support development of new orbital-class rockets, a further step taken by the Jeff Bezos-owned company to break into the military launch market, industry officials said.

Orbital ATK’s Minotaur-C rocket, formerly known as the Taurus, has launched for the first time in six years from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The solid-fueled launcher lifted off with 10 commercial Earth-imaging satellites at 2:37 p.m. PDT (5:37 p.m. EDT; 2137 GMT) Monday.

A Russian Proton rocket lifted off Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with the AsiaSat 9 satellite destined to provide television broadcast, video networking and data delivery services over the Asia-Pacific region. Launch occurred at 1852:16 GMT (2:52:16 p.m. EDT), beginning a series of maneuvers expected to last nine hours before AsiaSat 9 is deployed from the rocket.