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

With the payload matching game showing no prospects, the final Delta 2 rocket could be headed to the Smithsonian or another museum instead of space.

United Launch Alliance plans to assemble leftover parts for a Delta 2 rocket display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida alongside other icons of U.S. rocketry, the company announced Saturday soon after the final Delta 2 launch.

A Delta 2 rocket has lifted off from California’s Central Coast on Saturday with a NASA environmental satellite designed to improve flood and drought forecasts, map moisture in Earth’s soils, and track the planet’s water cycle.