Photos: Atlas 5 rocket aims for International Space Station

Running a day late, a United Launch Alliance heavy-lift Delta 4 rocket thundered away from Cape Canaveral early Sunday, boosting NASA’s $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe into space on a daring seven-year mission to “touch the sun” with repeated trips through the star’s blazing outer atmosphere.

Something went wrong with a Russian Progress cargo spacecraft moments before it deployed into orbit Tuesday on the way to the International Space Station, and investigators are analyzing whether the stricken supply ship may have lost control after a botched separation from its Soyuz rocket booster.

A Proton rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with the EchoStar 21 communications satellite Thursday, the heaviest commercial payload ever flown aboard a Russian booster.