Photos: Atlas 5 powers NRO payload into the night

Six satellites are set to ride a light-class European Vega rocket into orbit from French Guiana on Wednesday night, the first Vega launch since a failure last year that officials attributed to human error.

Vaulting away from Cape Canaveral on an unusual southerly trajectory, a Falcon 9 rocket dodged stormy weather and successfully placed an Argentine radar observation satellite into an orbit over Earth’s poles Sunday on SpaceX’s 100th launch.

Five commercial Chinese satellites carrying video and hyperspectral imaging sensors took off Thursday aboard a Long March 11 booster.