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

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday, heading due east over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver the GovSat 1 communications satellite into orbit around 32 minutes later.

China’s space program is sprinting toward the end of the year by extending the country’s record-breaking launch rate, with two more space missions lifting off in the last week carrying a pathfinder for a planned constellation of Internet satellites and a mysterious payload heading for geostationary orbit. At least one more Long March rocket is set to lift off Saturday to close out 2018.

A Falcon 9 rocket loaded with 58 more broadband relay nodes for SpaceX’s Starlink Internet network took off Tuesday from Cape Canaveral, bringing the total number of Starlink craft launched since May 2019 to 653 satellites.