Photos: Gantry rolled back to reveal Atlas 5 rocket for launch

Soaring in fine fashion before daybreak, a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket maneuvered a new spy satellite into a unique retrograde orbit Wednesday morning to join an expanding constellation of radar-imaging spacecraft.

Putting on a holiday light show for Southern California and much of the desert southwest, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fired into a twilight sky from the Pacific coastline Friday night to add 10 new satellites to Iridium’s upgraded communications network.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket that will hurl the four MMS satellites into a highly elliptical Earth orbit on March 12 has completed its basic build up at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 Vertical Integration Facility.