Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

Poised to loft a Russian-German X-ray astronomy observatory into space Friday, a Proton rocket returned to its launch pad Tuesday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan after a three-week delay to replace a drained battery on the vehicle.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket departed Cape Canaveral at 11:36 a.m. EDT (1536 GMT) to deploy the Global Positioning System 2F-10 navigation satellite.

NASA and Northrop Grumman are “suspending integration and testing operations” on the James Webb Space Telescope in response to the coronavirus pandemic, a decision that officials said is likely to delay the mission’s scheduled launch date in March 2021.