Video: Mars Pathfinder pre-launch preparations

A United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket lifted off Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with the JPSS 1 weather satellite, the first in a new line of polar-orbiting observatories for NOAA.

A United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket fired away from a California military base and disappeared into an overcast cloud deck Saturday on its final flight, carrying a NASA research satellite into orbit and closing the book on a nearly 30-year legacy of launches.

NASA’s innovative soil moisture mapper, a new environmental satellite launching in January, has been fueled up for blastoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.