Photos: California’s predawn liftoff of Atlas 5 rocket

Riding a column of red-hot rocket exhaust, an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle fired into orbit Wednesday with a replacement satellite for the country’s home-grown navigation network.

A bad weather forecast has prompted Japanese space officials to delay the launch of an H-2A rocket with a high-resolution government-owned reconnaissance satellite by at least 48 hours until Monday night, U.S. time.

The Pentagon has awarded at least $162 million in contracts to Aerojet Rocketdyne and United Launch Alliance for development of the AR1 and BE-4 rocket engines, candidates to power the first stage of a next-generation rocket and replace the Russian-made engine currently flying on the Atlas 5 launcher.