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

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral at 8:38 a.m. EST (1338 GMT) Friday to place the Global Positioning System 2F-12 navigation satellite into space. Follow the mission in our live journal.

A heavy-lift Long March 5 rocket hurled a 9-ton Chinese spacecraft toward the moon Monday on a 23-day mission attempting to return lunar samples to Earth for the first time in 44 years.

Flying with an exceptionally lightweight payload, a Falcon 9 rocket delivered a multipurpose research satellite into a nearly 450-mile-high orbit Thursday for Taiwan following a smooth countdown and liftoff from California’s Central Coast.