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

Orbital ATK’s Minotaur-C rocket, formerly known as the Taurus, has launched for the first time in six years from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The solid-fueled launcher lifted off with 10 commercial Earth-imaging satellites at 2:37 p.m. PDT (5:37 p.m. EDT; 2137 GMT) Monday.

European engineers who developed a small satellite hitching a ride to the International Space Station aboard a SpaceX supply ship Monday are gearing up for a first-of-a-kind experiment to examine ways to snare a chunk of space junk and tug it back to Earth.

For the fifth time in four years, a massive U.S. Navy satellite will launch atop an Atlas 5 rocket on Friday to finish the military’s new $7.7 billion mobile communications framework 22,300 miles in space.