Video: Tower rollback prior to launch of Mars Pathfinder atop a Delta 2

NASA has decommissioned a long-lived satellite launched in 2000 that demonstrated remote sensing and surveying instruments and techniques common in today’s orbiting Earth observatories.

NASA’s Kepler planet-finder began its mission to discover Earth-like worlds orbiting other stars in the galaxy today in 2009, successfully launching aboard a Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral.

The step-by-step stacking of United Launch Alliance’s final Delta 2 rocket was completed in June at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California for liftoff Sept. 15 with an Earth science satellite for NASA.