Watch live video of the Solar Orbiter launch pad at Cape Canaveral (members only)

Marking United Launch Alliance’s first rocket flight in 2017, beginning its year of national security and science-enabling missions, the Atlas 5 rocket departs Cape Canaveral carrying the SBIRS GEO Flight 3 satellite.

Completing an October to remember, the third Atlas 5 rocket launch in just 29 days thundered into space Saturday, this time to replace an aging satellite in the Global Positioning System.

Eric Boe, one of three astronauts assigned to the first piloted test flight of a Boeing CST-100 Starliner commercial crew ship later this year has been removed from the mission due to unspecified medical issues, NASA announced Tuesday. He will be replaced by veteran astronaut Mike Fincke.