Photos: Atlas launch seen from pad cameras

Redesigned titanium steering fins will fly aboard a Falcon 9 rocket launching Sunday from California, part of upgrades SpaceX says will ease the reuse of future boosters.

A flight demonstration of an inflatable heat shield that could be used to retrieve reusable engines from United Launch Alliance’s next-generation Vulcan rocket, and for the delivery of heavier cargo to the surface of Mars, is planned for launch in late 2021 or early 2022 as a piggyback payload on an Atlas 5 rocket with a NOAA weather satellite.

The most powerful variants of the Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets have been purchased by the Air Force to launch intelligence-gathering spacecraft for the U.S. government, and NASA has bought an Atlas 5 to deploy a critical polar-orbiting weather satellite.