Live coverage: Atlas 5 blasts off with Navy satellite

Rocket Lab’s first mission of 2020 lifted off from New Zealand’s North Island at 9:56 p.m. EST Thursday (0256 GMT; 3:56 p.m. New Zealand time Friday) with a secret payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, which owns the U.S. government’s fleet of intelligence-gathering spy satellites.

A Japanese H-2A rocket launched from Tanegashima Island on Wednesday with the Himawari 9 weather observatory bound for a perch more than 22,000 miles above Earth to improve forecasting in the Asia-Pacific. Liftoff of the 17-story rocket from southern Japan occurred at 0620 GMT (2:20 a.m. EDT) Wednesday.

A European re-entry demonstrator launched aboard a solid-fueled Vega rocket at 1340 GMT (8:40 a.m. EST) from French Guiana, kicking off a whirlwind 102-minute around-the-world test flight to validate technologies that could be used on future reusable launchers and spaceships.