Video: Missile alert satellite launches atop Atlas 5

NASA is sending into orbit Monday night a spacecraft to test a safer type of rocket fuel, an ultra-precise atomic clock that could change the way missions navigate in deep space, and an experiment to examine the resiliency of electronics to radiation.

Completing an October to remember, the third Atlas 5 rocket launch in just 29 days thundered into space Saturday, this time to replace an aging satellite in the Global Positioning System.

SpaceX debuted a more reusable, higher-thrust model of the Falcon 9 rocket Friday, hauling Bangladesh’s first communications satellite into orbit from Florida’s Space Coast.