Photos: Atlas 5 launches EchoStar 19 broadband satellite

Track the major events during the Minotaur 4 rocket’s 28-minute climb into a unique equatorial orbit with the ORS-5 space surveillance satellite for the U.S. military’s Operationally Responsive Space office.

Boeing engineers have completed hotfire testing on a flight-like model of the Starliner crew capsule, clearing a major hurdle before a pad abort test and a demonstration flight to the International Space Station later this summer, Boeing announced Friday.

Riding the rails to the launch pad Wednesday morning, the Atlas 5 rocket was rolled out to Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 for liftoff Thursday night to deploy four NASA satellites that will probe Earth’s magnetosphere for a high-priority research project.