Q&A with Steve Skladanek, president of Lockheed Martin Commercial Launch Services

An unmanned cargo freighter carrying nearly four tons of supplies and science, launched and operated commercially for NASA, blasted off from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday atop an Atlas 5 rocket bound for the International Space Station.

These photos show a 194-foot-tall United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket standing on pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in advance of a planned launch with the U.S. Space Force’s fifth SBIRS missile warning satellite.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, en route to asteroid Bennu to retrieve samples and return them to scientists, slingshot past Earth on Friday, using gravity to change its trajectory for a rendezvous with its target late next year.