With the 4.5-ton spacecraft shrouded in its nose cone, the 17-story Atlas blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 12:40 a.m. and then arced out over the Atlantic Ocean as it rocketed toward orbit.

The Lockheed Martin rocket blazed a fiery trail through a clear night sky and then dropped its payload off a half-hour later in an orbit 20,000 miles above Earth.

The satellite -- built by Space Systems Loral of Palo Alto, Calif. -- will use onboard thrusters to climb into an orbit 22,300 miles above the planet, the typical operating realm of civil, military and commercial communications spacecraft.

Three orbit-raising maneuvers are planned during the next several days.

Owned by a consortium of Asian companies, the multimedia broadcast satellite will beam 60 digital music channels as well as news, weather, sports and entertainment programming to customers with palm-sized terminals similar to Personal Digital Assistants, or PDAs.

Known by the acronym MBSAT, the satellite is expected to operate for 12 years in orbit.

Mobile Broadcasting Corp. of Tokyo and SK Telecom of Seoul, South Korea, head the consortium.

The launch marked the 70th consecutive success for Lockheed Martin's Atlas family of rockets. The company's International Launch Services subsidiary carried out the mission.

Next up at Cape Canaveral: A Boeing Delta 2 rocket with a Navstar Global Positioning System, or GPS, satellite. The navigation spacecraft is to be launched from complex 17 next Saturday at a time that will be announced early next week.

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