Photos: First ULA mission of the year blasts off

Flying for the first time this year, a Proton rocket streaked into space Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with two Russian Express communications satellites that will beam television, radio and broadband signals across the country.

Soaring into a clear early evening sky, SpaceX’s second Falcon Heavy rocket lifted off from a seaside launch complex Thursday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida before a crowd of thousands of space enthusiasts.

NASA’s new communications satellite, launched to a preliminary orbit August 18, has ascended to geosynchronous altitude more than 22,000 miles up, deployed its giant antennas and extended twin solar arrays to begin in-space commissioning.