Photos: Atlas 5 rocket aims for International Space Station

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral on Friday afternoon, sending a Dragon cargo freighter on the way to the International Space Station as the launcher’s first stage booster returned to Earth aboard a floating platform.

A Brazilian satellite designed to track deforestation in the Amazon rainforest will rocket into orbit on top of an Indian launcher late Saturday (U.S. time).

Four magnetic explosion probes in a towering stack atop an Atlas 5 rocket rode a fountain of flame off the launch pad and into Earth orbit Thursday night for a $1.1 billion NASA science investigation into a universal force of nature.