Photos: Atlas 5 rocket powers NROL-52 payload to space

A Chinese oceanography satellite designed to measure wave height and winds launched Monday aboard a Long March 4B rocket equipped with grid fins to help control the first stage’s descent back to Earth, an improvement aimed at keeping falling boosters away from Chinese villages.

President Trump plans to visit the Kennedy Space Center in Florida next week to view the first launch of astronauts into orbit from U.S. soil in nearly a decade, according to White House officials.

NASA’s new communications satellite, launched to a preliminary orbit August 18, has ascended to geosynchronous altitude more than 22,000 miles up, deployed its giant antennas and extended twin solar arrays to begin in-space commissioning.