Two communications satellites are launched into orbit by an Atlas V rocket.

Atlas V rocket launched two commercial communications satellites into orbit.

Tuesday at 5:36 p.m. EDT (2136 GMT), Cape Canaveral Space Force Station launched the Atlas V, which was topped with the identical SES-20 and SES-21 satellites.

The 60-meter-tall (196-foot) rocket made early contact with all of its targets. For instance, it abandoned its payload fairing, which shielded the two satellites during launch, about 1.5 minutes after it expended its three solid rocket boosters as anticipated. At roughly T+4.5 minutes, the two stages of the Atlas V split apart.

The Centaur upper stage of the rocket still needs to propel itself to the deployment locations for SES-20 and SES-21, which are near-circular, near-geosynchronous orbits high above Earth. This means there is still a lot of work to be done.

SES-20 will deploy approximately 5 hours and 40 minutes after liftoff, and SES-21 will do the same approximately 40 minutes later, assuming all goes as planned. According to a ULA mission description, the two spacecraft will next utilise their onboard propulsion systems to circularise their orbits, sending them zipping around Earth at a height of around 22,300 miles (35,900 kilometres) above the equator.

The Atlas V launch is one of many spaceflight activities this week. For instance, SpaceX intends to launch the Crew-5 human mission for NASA, a new batch of Starlink internet satellites, and two telecom satellites for Intelsat on Wednesday (Oct. 5), all in separate missions (Oct. 6).

There are three additional missions scheduled for Thursday, October 6, including a Rocket Lab launch that will place a satellite made by the energy and technology company General Atomics in orbit.