Photos: Atlas 5 launches EchoStar 19 broadband satellite

A Soyuz booster and Fregat upper stage successfully carried a missile warning satellite into orbit Friday for the Russian military.

With the Atlas 5 rocket that will boost it into space now assembled and waiting, a $408 million NASA communications satellite is in final preparations for its science data relay mission.

SpaceX’s 50th Falcon 9 rocket flight took off from Florida’s Space Coast shortly after midnight Tuesday with the Hispasat 30W-6 communications satellite, firing into a moonlit night sky with 1.7 million pounds of thrust.