Video: Falcon 9 rocket fires engines in pre-launch test (members only)

A photo gallery shows Thursday night’s successful Atlas 5 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral.

After a 24-hour delay due to poor weather, an air-launched Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket fired into orbit at 9:59 p.m. EDT Thursday (0159 GMT Friday) after release from a carrier jet at an altitude of 39,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean northeast of Cape Canaveral. The Pegasus rocket carried NASA’s ICON satellite into orbit to collect measurements of the ionosphere.

A Chinese environmental research craft and an experimental Earth-imaging nanosatellite successfully launched Saturday aboard a Long March 2D rocket.