Live coverage: India’s Chandrayaan 2 moon mission blasts off

The United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket has taken off tonight from Cape Canaveral, headed for space to deploy a satellite bought by allied nations to bolster the U.S. military global communications infrastructure.

NASA is taking steps to rein in costs, emphasizing bonds with private sector companies, and signaling it might be open to a future where the agency’s flagship Orion deep space capsule and Space Launch System are no longer necessary to explore deep space, at least in their current forms.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket blasted off Wednesday carrying NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory, the world’s most distant weather satellite heading for a point a million miles from Earth. Launch from Cape Canaveral occurred at 6:03 p.m. EST (2303 GMT).