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

Another successful launch Wednesday carried two more Beidou satellites into orbit, continuing a string of missions to push China’s independent navigation network closer to global coverage and adding international search-and-rescue support to the program’s portfolio.

The European-built Solar Orbiter spacecraft was installed on top of its United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 launcher Friday at Cape Canaveral, ready for final charging and checkouts before liftoff Feb. 9 to finally begin a more than $1.5 billion science mission first approved by the European Space Agency nearly 20 years ago.

A Falcon 9 rocket soars skyward from Cape Canaveral carrying NASA’s TESS observatory on a mission to discover planets around other stars. This was the view from the Kennedy Space Center Press Site.