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

Follow the Atlas 5 rocket’s ascent into orbit from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 launch pad with the U.S. Air Force’s GPS 2F-11 navigation satellite. Launch is scheduled for Friday at 12:17 p.m. EDT (1617 GMT).

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s Space Coast Wednesday evening with the SES 11/EchoStar 105 communications satellite, a video relay and data distribution platform jointly developed by SES and EchoStar.

The first official launch weather outlook issued Tuesday by U.S. Air Force meteorologists predicts an 80 percent chance of favorable conditions for the predawn liftoff Saturday of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft on a test flight to the International Space Station.