Video: Atlas takes flight with Cygnus

Russia launched a military communications satellite Wednesday, sending a data relay and broadcasting station to an orbit more than 22,000 miles above the equator aboard a Proton rocket and a Breeze M upper stage.

Set to resume a brisk pace of launch activity after a nearly six-week respite, SpaceX test-fired its next Falcon 9 rocket Thursday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of a planned liftoff Monday with several tons of experiments and supplies for the International Space Station.

Completing an October to remember, the third Atlas 5 rocket launch in just 29 days thundered into space Saturday, this time to replace an aging satellite in the Global Positioning System.