Video: Delta 2/SMAP pre-launch news conference

Follow the Atlas 5 rocket’s ascent into orbit from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 launch pad with the U.S. Air Force’s GPS 2F-11 navigation satellite. Launch is scheduled for Friday at 12:17 p.m. EDT (1617 GMT).

The rocket launched more than 340 times successively and successfully before it encountered an issue with its upper stage on July 11. Liftoff of the Starlink 10-9 mission happened at 1:45 a.m. EDT (0545 UTC).

America’s next Mars rover, a $2.1 billion nuclear-powered vehicle to search for evidence that life once existed there, will be launched to the Red Planet in the summer of 2020 by a powerful Atlas 5 rocket.