Live coverage: Minotaur-C rocket launches with cluster of satellites

NASA’s InSight Mars lander will be buttoned up for launch in the coming weeks at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, in preparation for its hoisting atop an Atlas 5 rocket for blastoff in the predawn hours of May 5.

Flying without astronauts on a demonstration flight in Earth orbit, a test model of a next-generation Chinese crew capsule lifted off Tuesday on top of a heavy-lift Long March 5B rocket, the same launcher configuration that will loft segments of China’s planned space station.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, standing 197 feet tall and and weighing 1.2 million pounds, unleashes 2.4 million pounds of thrust from its main engine and four side-mounted solid boosters to launch the secret NROL-42 payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.