Photos: Delta 4-Heavy launch as seen from press site

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket was launched on-time today at 2:36 p.m. EDT carrying a new Global Positioning System spacecraft to advance the navigation network with every launch.

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, built to find planets around other stars that are close enough for detailed follow-ups by future telescopes, launched Wednesday into a unique high-altitude orbit on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral.

The next time astronauts land on the moon, they will ride to the lunar surface in a spacecraft that looks a lot different than the Apollo-era landing module last used in 1972. Lander concepts proposed by SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics — which won a combined $967 million in NASA funding Thursday — take wildly different approaches to carrying crews to the moon.