Photos: Liftoff of Atlas 5 from California

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Wednesday evening, heading due east over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver the SES 11/EchoStar 105 communications satellite into orbit 36 minutes later.

Follow the unclassified portion of the Atlas 5 rocket’s ascent to space from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base launch site with the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office’s NROL-79 satellite payload. Launch is scheduled for Wednesday at 9:50 a.m. local time (12:50 p.m. EST; 1750 GMT).

The last planned batch of high-resolution SkySat commercial Earth-viewing reconnaissance satellites owned by Planet will accompany 58 Starlink broadband relay stations on a climb into orbit Tuesday from Cape Canaveral on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, adding to the world’s two largest commercial satellite fleets.