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

An Indian rocket fired into space Wednesday with a high-power radar imaging satellite designed to peer through clouds and darkness to resolve signs of pollution, natural disasters and foreign military movements.

The main engine rumbling to life. Ice shards breaking free. The rocket lumbering off the pad. The battle against gravity being won once again. That was the scene as the Atlas 5 took flight to cap a generation of Global Positioning System satellites.

Andrew Driesman is project manager for NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, leading a team of engineers and operators in charge of the first mission to fly through the sun’s atmosphere.