Photos: Atlas 5 powers NRO payload into the night

An upgraded version of SpaceX’s Dragon cargo freighter launched Sunday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, loaded with 3.2 tons of supplies and experiments in the first of at least nine resupply flights to the International Space Station under a new NASA contract.

United Launch Alliance chief executive Tory Bruno said Thursday the company will offer more rides for CubeSats aboard future Atlas 5 rocket flights, and give some away for free, in a bid to tap into a growing market of small satellites with applications in education, scientific research and commercial business.

Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus XL rocket will take about 11 minutes to place NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, satellite into a roughly 357-mile-high (575-kilometer) orbit after an airborne launch off Florida’s east coast.