CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – United Launch Alliance launches an Atlas V rocket carrying a Navy communications satellite on Tuesday evening.
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The forecast showed a 90 percent chance of favorable weather during the 44 minute launch window, but the launch time was delayed more than three times due to range issues and upper level winds.
[WATCH: Raw: Atlas V launches]
The Atlas V rocket launched at 8:04 p.m.
Five solid motors strapped to the base of the the 206-foot Atlas V — its most powerful version — helped the rocket bolt from Launch Complex 41 with its heaviest payload ever, a 7.5-ton U.S. Navy communications satellite.
The mission is the first of 10 planned this year from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station by ULA, the Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture that is the government's exclusive launcher of national security payloads.
This one is the Navy's third Mobile User Objective System spacecraft, or MUOS, billed as a smart phone network in the sky for warfighters on the move.
The large, heavy satellite is bound for a high orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator.
The first two satellites in the series used the same powerful version of the Atlas V. Out of 51 Atlas V missions to date, only two others have: NASA probes headed to Pluto and Jupiter.