Photos: Spectacular start to Delta 4-Heavy’s satellite deployment mission

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket successfully flies to orbit Friday to deliver the U.S. Navy’s fifth Mobile User Objective System communications satellite.

A commercial Cygnus resupply ship named for Robert H. Lawrence, Jr. — the first African American selected as an astronaut — is awaiting liftoff Sunday evening from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility on Virginia’s Eastern Shore to begin a 35-hour trip to the International Space Station.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, standing 191 feet tall and and weighing 720,000 pounds, unleashes 860,000 pounds of thrust from its main engine at 9:49:51 a.m. local time today to launch the secret NROL-79 payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.