Photos: Atlas launch seen from pad cameras

NASA and Northrop Grumman are expected to base the launch of an air-dropped Pegasus rocket with a NASA science satellite from Cape Canaveral later this year, after originally trying to get the mission into space from a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, equipped with four strap-on solid-propellant boosters for added performance, was transfered from its assembly building to the pad at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 to deliver the GOES-R weather satellite into space.

Culminating years of construction and testing, a $1.2 billion satellite designed to spot and track enemy missiles threatening the United States homeland, its deployed military forces abroad or allied nations will ascend to a surveillance post in space Thursday.