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

An extended mission for the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage after launch Thursday with a space station cargo ship helped demonstrate SpaceX’s ability to perform long-duration flight sequences to inject U.S. military payloads directly into high-altitude geosynchronous orbit.

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-12 navigation satellite. Launch is scheduled for Friday at 8:38 a.m. EST (1338 GMT).

Two weeks after a sensor problem forced a delay, an Ariane 5 rocket blasted off at 6:04 p.m. EDT (2204 GMT) Saturday from French Guiana with two commercial communications satellites to cover the United States and Japan, and a Northrop Grumman-built robotic satellite servicing mission designed to link up with another spacecraft in geostationary orbit.