Live coverage: Chinese sample return spacecraft completes docking in lunar orbit

Departing Cape Canaveral at 8:37 a.m. EDT Thursday, the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted a classified national security satellite into orbit for deployment.

United Launch Alliance’s 50th mission for the U.S. Air Force lifted off at 12:15 a.m. EDT (0415 GMT) Wednesday. An Atlas 5 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral with the Air Force’s fourth Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite.

SpaceX’s second Falcon Heavy, outfitted to produce more thrust than the heavy-lifter’s debut flight last year, was raised vertical at launch pad 39A in Florida on Wednesday ahead of a launch attempt with the Arabsat 6A communications satellite.