Photos: Atlas sends up new NASA satellite

Look back on last week’s blastoff of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral with NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite.

The launch of a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana with four more satellites Thursday to join SES’s O3b broadband network will help satisfy growing bandwidth demands in Latin America, Africa and the Pacific islands until the deployment of a new generation of upgraded spacecraft in 2021, SES officials said.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket made its third trip to a Cape Canaveral launch pad Thursday, rolling into position for liftoff Friday afternoon with a classified payload for the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency.