Live coverage: Vega rocket blasts off from French Guiana on commercial flight

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral today at 7:42 p.m. EST (0042 GMT) to deploy the U.S. military’s SBIRS GEO Flight 3 observatory, equipped with advanced telescopic infrared vision to spot enemy missile launches, for early warning surveillance.

A powerhouse communications satellite with up to five times the capacity of most existing telecom craft reached orbit Wednesday after a nighttime blastoff from French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 rocket, marking an auspicious start to the deployment of Intelsat’s $2 billion next-generation satellite network.

Three of Planet’s commercial SkySat Earth-imaging spacecraft will ride to space on top of a stack of SpaceX Starlink satellites next month aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, and three more will hitch a ride on another SpaceX mission later this summer.