Photos: Atlas 5 launches new weather observer

Departing on three pillars of fire, the United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket lifted off at 1:51 p.m. from Cape Canaveral for a classified national security satellite deployment.

China launched a Long March 4B rocket Saturday with a high-resolution mapping satellite for the Chinese Ministry of Natural Resources and two smaller spacecraft designed for astronomical observations and data relay services.

Russian investigators have traced the cause of a dramatic Oct. 11 Soyuz launch abort to a “deformed” sensor in a system that controlled the separation of a strap-on first-stage booster from the rocket’s central core stage, triggering a dramatic emergency escape for the Russian mission commander and his NASA co-pilot, senior managers said Thursday.