Photos: Delta 4 lights up the sky for night owl launch

Arianespace and CNES, the French space agency, have released sensational slow-motion video from shielded engineering cameras at the Ariane 5 rocket’s launch pad in French Guiana, showing the launcher’s fiery evening takeoff Feb. 5 with communications satellites for Saudi Arabia and India.

The 200th Atlas-Centaur rocket, history some 52 years in the making, will blast off Tuesday from Cape Canaveral to deliver a U.S. Navy mobile communications satellite into orbit.

Launching the sixth mission of the U.S. military’s super-secret X-37B spaceplane program, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off Sunday morning from Cape Canaveral and successfully delivered its clandestine cargo to orbit.