Photos: Atlas 5 powers away with NROL-61 payload

Two Earth-imaging microsatellites built and owned by the Argentine company Satellogic launched on a Long March 2D rocket from China Wednesday, sharing a ride into orbit with two Chinese spacecraft.

This is video footage documenting stacking activities for the two-stage United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, standing 194 feet tall, to boost the commercial Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo freighter to the International Space Station. Activities occurred at Cape Canaveral’s Vertical Integration Facility.

A Soyuz rocket crowned by a Fregat upper stage carrying 11 Russian, German and U.S. satellites into orbit lifted off Thursday from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East, the first flight from the country’s newest spaceport since a failure in November.