Photos: Delta 4-Heavy launch as seen from press site

Three of Planet’s commercial SkySat Earth-imaging spacecraft will ride to space on top of a stack of SpaceX Starlink satellites next month aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, and three more will hitch a ride on another SpaceX mission later this summer.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Thursday carrying the U.S. Air Force’s first GPS 3-series navigation satellite destined for an orbit more than 12,000 miles above Earth.

This photo gallery includes a series of spectacular pictures of the launch of an Atlas 5 rocket Nov. 13 from Cape Canaveral with a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office.