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

Making its third try after back-to-back aborts, a Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched the commercial Intelsat 35e communications satellite Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Liftoff from launch pad 39A occurred at 7:38 p.m. EDT (2338 GMT).

SpaceX’s first full-size stainless steel Starship test vehicle stands some 164 feet tall and measures wider than the cabin of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. If Elon Musk has his way, it will fly to an altitude of 65,000 feet before the end of the year.

his photo gallery shows the classified National Reconnaissance Office payload, already encapsulated in the 14-foot-diameter nose cone, being lifted atop the United Launch Alliance Atlas-Centaur rocket at Cape Canaveral’s Vertical Integration Facility.