The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket unleashes two million pounds of thrust at 7:19 p.m. to blast off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on the NROL-35 mission.
NOAA’s next geostationary weather satellite, GOES-S, was raised on top of an Atlas 5 launcher Friday at Cape Canaveral in preparation for liftoff March 1 to keep watch over the Pacific Ocean and the Western United States.
United Launch Alliance has granted “flight clearance” for its workhorse Atlas 5 rocket to resume satellite deployments after linking an errant valve with the fuel usage crunch on its most recent mission and tweaking subsequent vehicles.
There were more successful space launches in 2014 than in any year since 1992, with Russia, the United States and China responsible for more than 80 percent of global launch activity.