Photos: News media images of Atlas 5 launch

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 3:40 a.m. local (6:40 a.m. EST; 1140 GMT) today to place a secret payload into space for the National Reconnaissance Office. Follow the mission in our live journal.

Blue Origin teams in West Texas are preparing for another launch of the company’s reusable New Shepard suborbital rocket Thursday to loft dozens of microgravity research payloads to the edge of space.

A Japanese H-2A rocket launched at 5:58 p.m. EDT (2158 GMT) Sunday from the Tanegashima Space Center with the Emirates Mars Mission’s Hope orbiter, the UAE’s first probe to Mars.