Photos: Atlas 5 launches navigation craft from Cape Canaveral

SpaceX aims to launch the first Falcon Heavy rocket in November, company chief Elon Musk said Thursday, the latest in a series of schedule targets for the heavy-lift launcher’s delayed debut.

A United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket will deliver the U.S. Air Force’s tenth Wideband Global SATCOM communications satellite to a supersynchronous transfer orbit around 37 minutes after lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

In a mission marking the end of an era, NASA astronaut and former virus hunter Kate Rubins, using NASA’s last currently contracted seat on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, blasts off Wednesday with two cosmonaut crewmates on a flight to the International Space Station.