Live coverage: Ariane 5 blasts off with two Intelsat satellites

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 5:49 a.m. local time (8:49 a.m. EDT; 1249 GMT) Thursday on the classified National Reconnaissance Office NROL-55 mission.

Turkey’s newest communications satellite soared into space from the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Friday, and these spectacular images show the middle-of-the-night liftoff of the spacecraft’s Russian Proton rocket booster before it disappeared into low clouds.

SpaceX plans as many as 24 launches next year to build out the company’s Starlink network to provide broadband Internet service from space, following up to four more Starlink missions before the end of this year, according to SpaceX’s chief operating officer.