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

United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket, modified for crewed launches, rolled out of the Vertical Integration Facility Wednesday for the 1,800-foot trek to pad 41 in preparation for liftoff with Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule on an unpiloted mission to the International Space Station.

NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei and two Russian cosmonauts will ride a Soyuz ferry ship to the International Space Station early Friday, the first step in a record crew rotation requiring two launches and two landings with four different spacecraft in just three weeks.

A pair of Air Force surveillance satellites headed to geosynchronous orbit today to reconnoiter the high ground, departing Cape Canaveral aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket at 12:52 a.m. EDT (0452 GMT). It is the 375th Delta rocket flight since 1960.