Photos: Launch boosts satellite for U.S. allies

Astra’s next small satellite launcher has shipped to Kodiak Island in Alaska for final preparations ahead of a test flight planned in early August, five months after the company’s first orbital rocket faltered before getting off the ground.

Launching the commercial WorldView 4 Earth-imaging satellite for DigitalGlobe, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket thunders away from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base today at 10:30 a.m. local time (1:30 p.m. EST; 1830 GMT).

A satellite to provide residential Internet services across the U.S. was hoisted aboard its United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 booster on Saturday, Dec. 10 in preparation for liftoff on Sunday, Dec. 18.