Photos: Atlas 5 launches MUOS 5

Japan’s 35th H-2A rocket blasted off Saturday from the Tanegashima Space Center, flying into orbit in its most powerful configuration with a geostationary navigation satellite.

A Chinese oceanography satellite designed to measure wave height and winds launched Monday aboard a Long March 4B rocket equipped with grid fins to help control the first stage’s descent back to Earth, an improvement aimed at keeping falling boosters away from Chinese villages.

Technicians began the painstaking work of assembling a powerful Atlas 5 rocket today, a launcher that will deploy an advanced satellite to substantially improve U.S. weather forecasting.