Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for Friday launch to GPS constellation

SES has selected United Launch Alliance and SpaceX to launch up to five new commercial C-band communications satellites from Cape Canaveral in 2022 aboard Atlas 5 and Falcon 9 rockets, officials announced Wednesday.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rumbled into the sky Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, flexing the rocket’s muscles and lofting a massive Intelsat satellite to orbit supporting wireless communications, television broadcasting and trans-Atlantic data relays.

A Russian rocket released two Galileo navigation satellites nearly 15,000 miles above Earth early Friday, adding to a growing fleet giving Europe an independent space-based positioning system tracking automobiles, airplanes and cell phone-carrying people around the world.