Videos: Atlas 5 caps a generation of GPS launches

Canada’s three new Radarsat Earth observation satellites were encapsulated inside the payload fairing of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket ahead of their liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Likened to raising a cellular tower 22,300 miles high, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket will put the Navy’s fourth mobile communications satellite into space to expands the rugged smartphone system to global coverage.

Technicians around Cape Canaveral spent the last four weeks assembling a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket and preparing a Lockheed Martin-built NOAA weather satellite for liftoff March 1.