Photos: Atlas 5 rocket aims for International Space Station

NOAA’s newest weather satellite, heading for a perch with coverage over the western United States and the Pacific Ocean, launched March 1 from Cape Canaveral on top of an Atlas 5 rocket.

The Falcon 9 booster for SpaceX’s next mission fired up briefly on a Cape Canaveral launch pad Sunday in a routine pre-flight test before a scheduled launch Friday night to kick off the final flight of the first version of the company’s Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station.

Rising into a midnight sky lit by the full moon, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral early Monday with a commercial cargo craft on the way to the International Space Station, then returned to Florida’s Space Coast for a dramatic nighttime landing.