A U.S. military satellite that will fortify the “anytime, anywhere” communications infrastructure used by soldiers, ships, aircraft and drones was launched into orbit Thursday to improve the global connectivity that encompasses the planet.

The 100th flight of America’s Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program — a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket — departed Cape Canaveral on Saturday evening carrying the most advanced U.S. weather satellite ever made.

A balky interplanetary seismic instrument that ran into technical problems in 2015, forcing a two-year delay in the launch of NASA’s InSight lander to Mars, cleared a major test last week after engineers redesigned part of the sensor package, boosting confidence that the mission will be ready to blast off in May 2018.