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The last Delta 4-Medium rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Thursday with a GPS navigation satellite for the U.S. Air Force.

The 207-foot-tall (63-meter) rocket launched from pad 37 at 9:06 a.m. EDT (1306 GMT), powered by a hydrogen-fueled RS-68A main engine and two strap-on solid rocket boosters producing more than 1.2 million pounds of thrust.

The engine and booster nozzles vectored their thrust to steer the Delta 4 rocket northeast from Cape Canaveral, aligning its trajectory with one of six orbital planes in the GPS navigation satellite network some 12,550 miles (20,200 kilometers) above Earth.

Thursday’s launch was the 40th flight of a Delta 4 rocket since November 2002, and the 29th and final mission to use one of ULA’s Delta 4-Medium variants, which use a single first stage core. At least five more launches by ULA’s Delta 4-Heavy rocket, made of three Delta 4 first stage booster cores, are planned through late 2023.

See our Mission Status Center for updates on the mission.

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