Bulking up NASA’s constellation of tracking stations in the sky that provides critical links between orbiting spacecraft and ground control, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket successfully deployed a new communications hub in space today.

Four more satellites for SES Networks’ O3b broadband fleet launched Thursday aboard a Soyuz rocket. Liftoff of the Soyuz launcher from the Guiana Space Center in South America occurred at 1703 GMT (1:03 p.m. EDT).

More photos show the successful liftoff of the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket flight carrying the Cygnus commercial cargo spacecraft for Orbital ATK and the International Space Station.