Photos: Atlas 5 powers away with NROL-61 payload

A communications satellite destined to serve the Indian military is set to blast off from the country’s east coast Wednesday aboard a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle on the seventh and last launch of the year for the Indian space program.

The U.S. Defense Department’s internal watchdog has opened a probe into whether the Pentagon’s contracts with United Launch Alliance were properly awarded after a former ULA executive implied the government rigged a recent procurement in favor of the company.

Sixty more satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink broadband network launched Monday on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, bringing the total number of Starlink platforms deployed in orbit since last May to 300.