Photos: Atlas 5 rocket aims for International Space Station

United Launch Alliance teams at Cape Canaveral hoisted a Centaur upper stage on top of an Atlas 5 rocket Friday at launch pad 41, completing the initial build-up of the launch vehicle slated to carry Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule into space in December on an unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station.

A geodetic surveying satellite for the Russian military successfully launched Friday aboard a Rockot booster — a modified ballistic missile — from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

Ten new satellites for Iridium’s $3 billion next-generation communications network are set for launch Monday from California’s Central Coast aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.