Live coverage: Cygnus rendezvous and arrival journal and webcast

Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket took off at 1:12 a.m. EDT (0512 GMT) Saturday carrying five payloads for the National Reconnaissance Office, NASA and the University of New South Wales at Canberra in Australia. The launch was the first for Rocket Lab since January due to delays related to the coronavirus pandemic.

A 154-foot-long solid rocket booster will be ignited for two minutes Tuesday at a remote test site in Utah, wrapping up a series of five ground firings to prove the motor’s readiness for flight on NASA’s Space Launch System.

Joining the payload with its ride to space, United Launch Alliance crews today placed the next Global Positioning System satellite atop an Atlas 5 rocket for blastoff July 15.