Live coverage: Orion lands in Pacific

NASA will unveil the four crew members Monday who will fly around the moon on the first piloted flight of the agency’s Orion deep space capsule on the Artemis 2 mission as soon as late next year.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 5:49 a.m. local time (8:49 a.m. EDT; 1249 GMT) Thursday on the classified National Reconnaissance Office NROL-55 mission.

United Launch Alliance engineers filled a Delta 4-Heavy rocket with super-cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants Friday at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station during a practice countdown before the heavy-lifter’s scheduled liftoff in June with a top secret U.S. government spy satellite.