Launching the U.S. Navy’s fifth MUOS mobile communications satellite, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket thundered away from Cape Canaveral today.
Photos by Alex Polimeni / Spaceflight Now
See earlier MUOS 5 coverage.
Our Atlas archive.
Atlas 5
Blustery weather keeps Atlas 5 rocket grounded, SpaceX launch slips to Tuesday
Gusty winds associated with a subtropical low pressure system prevented United Launch Alliance from sending an Atlas 5 rocket into orbit Saturday from Cape Canaveral with the U.S. Air Force’s clandestine X-37B spaceplane. ULA plans to try again Sunday, and a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launch from a nearby pad has been delayed to Tuesday.
Mission Reports
Live coverage: Proton rocket launches with two U.S.-built satellites
A Russian Proton rocket lifted off at 1017 GMT (6:17 a.m. EDT) Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodorme in Kazakhstan. After a marathon 16-hour-long launch sequence, the Proton and its Breeze M upper stage will deploy the Eutelsat 5 West B video broadcast satellite and a robotic satellite servicing payload aiming to attempt the first-ever docking in geosynchronous orbit.
Falcon 9
Live coverage: Falcon 9 rocket soars into space from California
SpaceX launched its 12th Falcon 9 rocket of the year Thursday from California with Taiwan’s Formosat 5 Earth observation satellite. The two-stage rocket lifted off at 11:51 a.m. PDT (2:51 p.m. EDT; 1851 GMT) and deployed the Taiwanese-built spacecraft into polar orbit. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster successfully landed on a drone ship downrange in the Pacific Ocean.