Video: Post-launch news conference

United Launch Alliance fired an Atlas 5 rocket into space from Cape Canaveral at 9:14 a.m. EDT (1314 GMT) Sunday with the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane, an automated reusable mini-space shuttle designed to host experiments for years in orbit, then return to Earth and land on a runway. A launch attempt Saturday was scrubbed by bad weather.

The towering structure to be used for liftoffs of NASA’s Space Launch System rolled from a construction site to launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this week, arriving at the seaside complex Friday for a week of fit checks.

Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi has traveled to the International Space Station on a space shuttle and a Russian capsule. He’s now gearing up to launch on a SpaceX Crew Dragon spaceship, becoming only the third person to launch from Earth into orbit on three different types of spacecraft.