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

United Launch Alliance engineers filled a Delta 4-Heavy rocket with super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants Friday at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station during a practice countdown before the heavy-lifter’s scheduled liftoff in June with a top secret U.S. government spy satellite.

SpaceX will go for another first Thursday, this time flying a refurbished Dragon supply ship carrying nearly 6,000 pounds of cargo and experiments to the International Space Station nearly three years after its first mission.

A new launch date has been established — June 9 — for the Delta 4-Heavy rocket to carry a classified satellite into space for U.S. national security needs.