Photos: Atlas 5 launches MUOS 5

NOAA’s next geostationary weather satellite, GOES-S, was raised on top of an Atlas 5 launcher Friday at Cape Canaveral in preparation for liftoff March 1 to keep watch over the Pacific Ocean and the Western United States.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched Feb. 22 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with the Spanish Paz radar observation satellite and two prototypes for a planned broadband Internet network.

Sixty more satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink global Internet network streaked into orbit Monday night from Cape Canaveral, including one spacecraft to test an experimental dark coating to address scientists’ concerns that the thousands of the quarter-ton, flat-panel satellites will impede astronomical observations.