Photos: First ULA mission of the year blasts off

Technicians working in the jungle of French Guiana have installed four new European Galileo navigation satellites on top of their Ariane 5 launcher, and filled the rocket’s upper stage with storable liquid propellants for liftoff Tuesday.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Sunday from Cape Canaveral with 143 small satellites, a record number of spacecraft on a single mission, giving a boost to startup space companies and stressing the U.S. military’s tracking network charged with sorting out the locations of all objects in orbit.

Two panels of managers and scientists presented details of SpaceX’s 16th operational resupply flight to the International Space Station on the eve of its launch aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral.