Video: TDRS-M takes flight atop Atlas 5

Launch managers in French Guiana on Monday approved plans to loft two U.S.-built communications for Intelsat aboard an Ariane 5 rocket Wednesday.

The Atlas 5 rocket emerges from the Vertical Integration Facility for rollout to Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral in preparation to launch GPS 2F-11 on Friday at 12:17 p.m. EDT.

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.