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

Meteorologists are anticipating favorable odds of good weather during the countdown to launch an Atlas 5 rocket and U.S. military satellite on Thursday evening from Cape Canaveral.

United Launch Alliance early Thursday delayed the launch of a triple-core Delta 4-Heavy rocket — the largest launcher in the company’s fleet — until Saturday to allow engineers more time to resolve an issue with a ground pneumatics control system.

Two Chinese Beidou navigation satellites launched Thursday, growing the country’s home-grown space-based GPS network nearly 14,000 miles above Earth.