Video: Delta 2/SMAP pre-launch news conference

With the SpaceX scrub earlier this week and the time needed to convert the Eastern Range over to the Delta 4, liftoff of that rocket carrying an internationally-purchased military communications satellite for the Air Force has been bumped to Saturday evening.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket will go from Cape Canaveral to low Earth orbit in less than 10 minutes Friday night with a Dragon capsule heading for the International Space Station carrying more than 4,300 pounds of supplies and experiments.

Rising from the ground and into the launch pad gantry, a clandestine U.S. national security payload was fitted atop its Atlas 5 booster rocket in California today for the ride into space on March 1.