Live coverage: Atlas 5 countdown and launch journal

Spaceflight Now Members can watch a time-lapse replay of the Atlas 5 rocket’s rollout to pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station before the launch of the U.S. Air Force’s AEHF 5 communications satellite.

After a search for an outside funding source turned up empty, NASA plans to end observations with the Spitzer Space Telescope in January to conclude a 16-year mission that discovered exoplanets, studied galaxies in the ancient universe, and peered at planets and asteroids in our own solar system.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket departs Vandenberg Air Force Base today at 10:30 a.m. local time (1:30 p.m. EST; 1830 GMT) to deliver the commercial WorldView 4 Earth-imaging satellite into polar orbit for DigitalGlobe.