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

Rocket Lab announced this week it has added two more nanosatellites to the first operational launch of the company’s Electron rocket, which is now scheduled to take off from New Zealand no earlier than Nov. 10, U.S. time, after a multi-month delay to resolve a technical problem.

A space-bound NASA satellite was hauled aboard a military transport aircraft from a Southern California factory to the launch site in Florida on Friday and its United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket booster arrived by sea from the manufacturing plant in Alabama today.

Rocket Lab launched an Electron rocket from New Zealand at 9:20 p.m. EST Thursday (0220 GMT Friday) carrying 30 small payloads into low Earth orbit. The company said the first stage of the Electron rocket splashed down in the Pacific Ocean under a parachute, a major step in Rocket Lab’s rocket reuse program.