MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 17th May, 2020) An Atlas V rocket carrying a secretive US space plane successfully lifted off from Florida on Sunday, the United Launch Alliance said.
"The United Launch Alliance Atlas V 501 rocket lifted off at 9:14 a.m. EDT (1314 UTC) carrying the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle," the company said in a statement.
The launch, performed for the new US military branch, the Space Force, was delayed for 24 hours on Saturday due to bad weather.
The company cut short the live coverage of the launch at the Defense Department's request soon after announcing that the rocket was on the trajectory towards a designated point in space.
The X-37B robotic plane is carrying a batch of experiments, some of them in the interest of the space agency NASA. The Boeing-built spacecraft, which looks like a miniature shuttle, has been to space five times before, spending up to 780 days in the orbit.
