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

SpaceX has postponed its next launch from the Kennedy Space Center indefinitely to examine data from a recent payload fairing test for another customer.

United Launch Alliance teams at Cape Canaveral launched an Atlas 5 rocket at 6:13 a.m. EDT (1013 GMT) Thursday with the U.S. Air Force’s fifth Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite. The AEHF 5 satellite will join a network of geostationary relay stations providing secure, jam-resistant video, voice and data links for the U.S. military.

This is our comprehensive fact sheet previewing the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket deployment of the classified NROL-42 payload for the National Reconnaissance Office.