Q&A with Keith Gendreau, principal investigator of the first X-ray space communications experiment (members only)

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket will deliver the U.S. Air Force’s second GPS 3-series navigation satellite into an elliptical transfer orbit nearly two hours after liftoff from Cape Canaveral.

United Launch Alliance fired an Atlas 5 rocket into space from Cape Canaveral at 9:14 a.m. EDT (1314 GMT) Sunday with the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane, an automated reusable mini-space shuttle designed to host experiments for years in orbit, then return to Earth and land on a runway. A launch attempt Saturday was scrubbed by bad weather.

Managers in charge of International Space Station say the massive orbiting laboratory and its residents can keep going despite Sunday’s failure of a SpaceX resupply launch, which destroyed a new docking adapter critical to NASA’s commercial crew program, a spacesuit, and a part to repair the lab’s water purification system.