Live coverage: Proton lifts off with U.S.-built satellite for Asian company

Northrop Grumman is gearing up for up to four launches this year at Wallops Island, Virginia, including two launches with Cygnus cargo ships heading to the International Space Station, and a pair of Minotaur rocket flights carrying classified payloads into orbit for the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency.

NASA’s ICESat 2 satellite has been bolted atop a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California as ground teams prepare for the final liftoff of the workhorse launcher Sept. 15.

United Launch Alliance’s first full-scale Vulcan booster with two Blue Origin BE-4 engines arrived at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Saturday, the first time in more than a decade that a core stage from a new family of orbital-class rockets has rolled into the Florida launch facility.