Photos: Delta 4 launches on secret NROL-45 mission

SpaceX has postponed Wednesday’s scheduled launch from California’s Central Coast with 64 smallsats, electing to keep the Falcon 9 rocket on the ground until at least Sunday to wait for improved weather conditions.

Technicians working at launch pad 0A at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia completed the final loading of cargo into Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus supply ship late Tuesday, and the Antares rocket was raised vertical again in preparation for Wednesday’s countdown.

In a mission marking the end of an era, NASA astronaut and former virus hunter Kate Rubins, using NASA’s last currently contracted seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, rocketed into orbit Wednesday with two cosmonaut crewmates on a record-setting flight to the International Space Station.