Artwork: ULA Vulcan rocket revealed

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket topped by the Air Force’s X-37B miniature space shuttle blasted off from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 today to deliver the spaceplane into orbit.

A United Launch Alliance arrived at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 launch pad Friday morning after rolling out of its vertical hangar with three U.S. Air Force satellites designed to provide communications to military leaders and test new in-orbit inspection and surveillance technology.

Former Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, a longtime space advocate whose district included the Kennedy Space Center and who flew aboard the shuttle Columbia in 1986 as a congressional observer, is President Biden’s choice to serve as NASA’s next administrator, the White House announced Friday.