Photos: Atlas 5 powers away with NROL-61 payload

Viasat announced Thursday that a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket will launch a next-generation broadband satellite from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center some time between 2020 and 2022, joining Arianespace and United Launch Alliance in a three-way split for Viasat’s new launch contracts.

Seven weeks to the day after their launch was postponed by a massive wildfire and the aftermath, a commercial Atlas 5 rocket and Earth-imaging satellite are scheduled to fly on Sunday, Nov. 6 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

A little more than a year after the Falcon Heavy rocket’s first test flight, SpaceX teams on Florida’s Space Coast are readying the world’s most powerful operational launcher for its second mission Thursday with a commercial communications satellite.