Photos: Atlas 5 powers NRO payload into the night

A solid-fueled rocket launched Wednesday by the Chinese startup OneSpace flew off course shortly after liftoff, the second time in five months one of China’s new space companies failed in a bid to become the country’s first private firm to place a spacecraft into orbit.

A Soyuz booster vaulted into a sunset sky over French Guiana on Wednesday evening, arcing north from the jungle spaceport in South America with six satellites to inaugurate OneWeb’s global broadband network.

China’s space program is sprinting toward the end of the year by extending the country’s record-breaking launch rate, with two more space missions lifting off in the last week carrying a pathfinder for a planned constellation of Internet satellites and a mysterious payload heading for geostationary orbit. At least one more Long March rocket is set to lift off Saturday to close out 2018.