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

A Proton rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with the Spektr-RG X-ray astronomy mission at 1230:57 GMT (8:30:57 a.m. EDT) Saturday.

Six months after sending one of its communications satellites to orbit on the first re-flight of a SpaceX rocket, SES intends to launch a hybrid television broadcasting satellite owned in partnership with EchoStar on another previously-used Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s Space Coast as soon as late September, industry officials told Spaceflight Now.

United Launch Alliance called off the planned liftoff of a Delta 4-Heavy rocket and a classified National Reconnaissance Office spy satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Wednesday after indications of elevated hydrogen concentrations around one of the launcher’s main engines. Three previous launch attempts were scrubbed by technical concerns and bad weather.