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

NOAA’s new JPSS 1 weather satellite deployed from its Delta 2 launcher in an orbit more than 500 miles above Earth nearly one hour after blasting off from California.

When the first Delta 2 rocket took off on Valentine’s Day 1989, ideas like navigating by smartphone and driving robots on Mars were science fiction. More than 150 launches over the last 30 years helped change all that.

Launching from Vandenberg Air Force Base on California’s Central Coast on its third try, United Launch Alliance’s Delta 2 rocket lifted off Saturday with NOAA’s JPSS 1 polar-orbiting weather satellite.