Photos: News media shots of the NROL-52 liftoff

The forecast of stormy weather prevented rollback of the mobile service gantry and the continuation of the countdown at Cape Canaveral on Wednesday for the United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket.

SpaceX’s 50th Falcon 9 rocket flight took off from Florida’s Space Coast shortly after midnight Tuesday with the Hispasat 30W-6 communications satellite, firing into a moonlit night sky with 1.7 million pounds of thrust.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched Feb. 22 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with the Spanish Paz radar observation satellite and two prototypes for a planned broadband Internet network.