Live coverage: H-2A rocket lifts off from Japan with navigation satellite

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 9:49:51 a.m. local time (12:49:51 p.m. EST; 1749:51 today to deploy a covert U.S. national security payload. Follow the ascent in our live journal.

A Boeing-built satellite on the way to join Inmarsat’s globe-spanning network geared to beam Internet and data transmission capacity to airline passengers, maritime crews and military personnel flew into orbit Monday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard an expendable Falcon 9 rocket.

High-tech cameras made in Indiana will soon be scanning across Asia, Australia, the Americas and the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans to give weather forecasters an unrivaled minute-by-minute glimpse of the development and movement of hurricanes, typhoons and storm systems.