Live coverage: Delta 4 countdown and launch journal

With as few as 15 more launches on the calendar over the next five years, the rocket name “Delta” that has been serving the U.S. and international customers since 1960 could permanently fade into history.

Launch teams are readying three rockets for a series of blastoffs this week from Cape Canaveral to loft a classified orbiting spy platform for the U.S. government, a long-delayed Argentine radar imaging payload, and the next set of Starlink broadband satellites.

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket went through a practice countdown and fueling exercise this week to prepare for its Aug. 19 liftoff to deliver a pair of orbital surveillance satellites into space.