Video: Delta 4 launches before dawn from California

The last Delta 4 launcher to fly in a single-core configuration rumbled into space Thursday morning from Cape Canaveral with a GPS navigation satellite, leaving United Launch Alliance with five more Delta 4-Heavy missions on contract through late 2023 before the Delta rocket family retires from service.

Citing schedule concerns over price benefits, Iridium announced Thursday it will launch its next 20 satellites on a pair of previously-flown Falcon 9 boosters from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, beginning with a Dec. 22 mission.

United Launch Alliance teams began stacking an Atlas 5 rocket inside a vertical hangar at Cape Canaveral Monday in preparation for an early February launch with the Solar Orbiter spacecraft, a joint U.S.-European probe that will take the first pictures of the sun’s poles.