Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

Seven weeks to the day after their launch was postponed by a massive wildfire and the aftermath, a commercial Atlas 5 rocket and Earth-imaging satellite are scheduled to fly on Sunday, Nov. 6 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

United Launch Alliance fired an Atlas 5 rocket into space from Cape Canaveral at 9:14 a.m. EDT (1314 GMT) Sunday with the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane, an automated reusable mini-space shuttle designed to host experiments for years in orbit, then return to Earth and land on a runway. A launch attempt Saturday was scrubbed by bad weather.

Delivering two-and-a-half million pounds of ground-shaking thrust at takeoff, more than any rocket flying from Cape Canaveral these days, the mighty vehicle was rolled from its assembly building to the launch pad Monday for Wednesday’s early morning blastoff.