Video: Highlights of weekend’s Delta 2 launch

The last Delta 4 launcher to fly in a single-core configuration rumbled into space Thursday morning from Cape Canaveral with a GPS navigation satellite, leaving United Launch Alliance with five more Delta 4-Heavy missions on contract through late 2023 before the Delta rocket family retires from service.

Just three weeks after the Delta 4-Heavy rocket left the launch pad on its way to a successful satellite-deployment mission for U.S. national security, a smaller booster in the family has rolled out for its August military flight.

With U.S. military demand waning in coming years, United Launch Alliance has multiple openings in its Atlas 5 launch manifest in 2017 and 2018 available to commercial customers with as little as three months’ notice, according to company officials.