Video: Launch camera replays from Friday’s Falcon 9 blastoff

A refrigerator-sized satellite soared into orbit aboard an air-launched Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket Thursday night over the Atlantic Ocean, finally setting off on a $252 million mission to probe the dynamic boundary region where space and Earth’s atmosphere meet.

A video camera aboard Russian Progress cargo ship reveals craft is spinning dramatically in orbit as it passes in range of ground station communications.

A European Vega rocket is scheduled to launch Tuesday from a tropical spaceport in South America carrying two Israeli-built satellites for the Italian military and a French-Israeli environmental observatory.