Live coverage: Atlas 5 countdown and launch journal

A sophisticated combat-ready U.S. military missile warning satellite moved to its launch pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station Saturday on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, ready for liftoff Monday afternoon.

A pair of Earth-imaging satellites for the Italian military and a French-Israeli environmental monitoring project lifted off from French Guiana aboard a European Vega rocket at 0158:33 GMT Wednesday (9:58:33 p.m. EDT Tuesday).

NOAA’s JPSS 1 weather satellite is enshrouded inside the nose fairing of a Delta 2 rocket, awaiting liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on a seven-year mission to collect data to improve global weather forecasts.