Live coverage: SpaceX grounds launch to wait for better recovery weather

A Ukrainian-built Zenit booster and a Russian-made Fregat upper stage launched with an Angolan communications satellite Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, but engineers lost contact with the spacecraft soon after its deployment in orbit more than 22,000 miles above Earth.

The first of two launches by SpaceX this week lifted off Monday, Dec. 3, from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California carrying 64 microsatellites and CubeSats to an orbit more than 350 miles (575 kilometers) above Earth.

Churning out the launches at a rapid pace, the Atlas 5 program sent another rocket soaring like clockwork Thursday for deployment of a national security satellite duo from California.