The Atlas 5 rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral for its pre-dawn ascent to deploy the NROL-52 payload for the National Reconnaissance Office.
Credit: United Launch Alliance
See earlier NROL-52 coverage.
Mission Reports
Suborbital test flight moves Blue Origin closer to launching people
The privately-developed New Shepard booster, designed and built by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’s space company Blue Origin, took off from a launch pad in West Texas, briefly flew into space with an instrumented capsule, and returned to a rocket-assisted landing Sunday in another test before humans climb aboard the suborbital spaceship.
Falcon 9
Two Americans, two Saudis launch on commercial astronaut mission
Former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, with more time in space than any other American, rocketed back into orbit for the fourth time Sunday, riding a SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher from Florida with a fare-paying investor and private pilot, and the first two Saudi Arabian astronauts to fly to the International Space Station.