Live coverage: Kennedy Space Center to reopen Friday

The last flight of the single-core variant of United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4 rocket lifted off at 9:06 a.m. EDT (1306 GMT) Thursday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The 207-foot-tall launcher carried a GPS navigation satellite into orbit for the U.S. Air Force.

A state-of-the-art satellite to provide high-speed Internet connectivity across North America, specializing in areas where terrestrial networks are not available, will be mounted atop its booster rocket Saturday in preparation for launch next weekend.

Veteran astronaut John Grunsfeld, who flew five space shuttle missions before becoming the head of NASA’s science mission directorate in 2012, announced Tuesday he will leave the space agency at the end of April.