Running a few days late after a delay caused by Hurricane Ian, an Atlas 5 rocket built by United Launch Alliance thundered off a launch pad at Cape Canaveral Tuesday and soared to an altitude of nearly 22,000 miles to deploy two commercial television broadcasting satellites for the commercial operator SES.
The Atlas 5 launcher lit its Russian-built RD-180 main engine in the final seconds of a smooth countdown Tuesday. As the countdown clock struck zero, three strap-on solid rocket boosters supplied by Northrop Grumman ignited to propel the 196-foot-tall (59.7-meter) rocket off the pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.
The main engine and…
