Photos: Atlas 5 fulfills MUOS launch series with fifth successful launch

A billion-dollar U.S. military satellite rode a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket into orbit Friday night from Cape Canaveral, joining a network of space sentinels warning of threatening missile launches from North Korea, or any other place on the globe.

The Air Force’s miniature space shuttle and its ride to orbit have been joined together inside an assembly building at Cape Canaveral in preparation for launch May 20.

A Soyuz rocket, with the help of a Fregat upper stage, delivered an Egyptian Earth observation satellite into a polar orbit at an altitude of more than 400 miles Thursday, overcoming an apparent technical problem after launching from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, according to Russian news reports.