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

The first of up to seven United Launch Alliance missions lifted off Jan. 19 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, where a Delta 4-Heavy launcher fired into orbit with 2.1 million pounds of thrust from three hydrogen-fueled RS-68A main engines with a U.S. government spy satellite.

A solid-fueled Minotaur 4 rocket lifted off from Wallops Island, Virginia at 9:46 a.m. EDT (1346 GMT) Wednesday. The four-stage rocket, comprised of retired Peacekeeper missile parts, launched on a mission to deliver four classified payloads into orbit for the National Reconnaissance Office.

The first nighttime launch of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket, and the first Falcon Heavy flight for the U.S. military, is set for no earlier than June 24 from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Air Force officials said Friday.