Live coverage: Kennedy Space Center to reopen Friday

NOAA’s GOES-S weather satellite, the latest in a series of meteorological observatories dating back to 1975, lifted off Thursday from Cape Canaveral aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.

SpaceX’s 20-story Falcon 9 rocket counts down to launch from Cape Canaveral on Monday with 2.2 tons of gear and experiments for the International Space Station.

With U.S. military demand waning in coming years, United Launch Alliance has multiple openings in its Atlas 5 launch manifest in 2017 and 2018 available to commercial customers with as little as three months’ notice, according to company officials.