The powerful rocket lifted off at 5:36 p.m.

An Atlas V rocket lifted off Tuesday evening (Oct. 4) from Florida's Space Coast, carrying two commercial communications satellites to orbit.

The Atlas V, topped with the twin SES-20 and SES-21 spacecraft, launched Tuesday at 5:36 p.m.

It jettisoned its three solid rocket boosters about 2 minutes after liftoff as planned, for example, and discarded its payload fairing, which protected the two satellites during launch, about 1.5 minutes later.

If all goes according to plan, SES-20 will be deployed about 5 hours and 40 minutes after liftoff, and SES-21 will follow suit roughly 40 minutes later.

Once the satellites are established in those orbits and have been through a checkout period, SES-20 and SES-21 can begin doing what they were built to do — provide television broadcasting service across the United States for the Luxembourg telecom company SES.

"Proven hardware coupled with next-generation technology created an affordable and lightweight spacecraft, enabling two satellites to launch on a single rocket," they added.

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