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

Another satellite to join the China’s independent global navigation network successfully launched Saturday from the mountainous Xichang spaceport in the southwest of the country.

Two Chinese Beidou navigation satellites launched Thursday, growing the country’s home-grown space-based GPS network nearly 14,000 miles above Earth.

Advancing the future of weather forecasting in the U.S., a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 6:42 p.m. EST (2342 GMT) today to deploy the GOES-R satellite, anext-generation geostationary observatory that promises unprecedented clarity and speed in tracking storms. Follow the ascent in our live journal.