The 8-million-pound mobile service tower is retracted from around the Atlas 5 rocket, revealing the 20-story-tall vehicle for liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.
Credit: ULA
Credit: ULACredit: ULA
Credit: James Murati/BioneticsCredit: James Murati/Bionetics
The launch of the next test flight of Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule has been delayed to no earlier than April 2 after workers replaced spacecraft avionics units damaged in a power surge during testing.
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.
United Launch Alliance teams at Cape Canaveral launched an Atlas 5 rocket at 6:13 a.m. EDT (1013 GMT) Thursday with the U.S. Air Force’s fifth Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite. The AEHF 5 satellite will join a network of geostationary relay stations providing secure, jam-resistant video, voice and data links for the U.S. military.