Photos: First ULA mission of the year blasts off

Russia launched a Soyuz rocket Sunday through a veil of fog over the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, carrying the first spacecraft in a new program to monitor Arctic weather systems and relay emergency communications.

The first launch from Cape Canaveral this year placed into orbit an Indonesian communications satellite, a privately-funded Israeli moon lander, and an experimental space surveillance microsatellite for the U.S. Air Force.

The 377th Delta rocket begins its journey to space carrying a military communications satellite funded by Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and New Zealand in a deal that gives the allies access to the U.S. military’s worldwide Wideband Global SATCOM system.