NASA, United Launch Alliance and Air Force officials hold the pre-launch news conference for the Delta 2 rocket with the agency’s SMAP environmental satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Jan. 27.
The mobile service tower retracts from the Atlas 5 rocket, revealing the 197-foot-tall vehicle for liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, carrying the classified NROL-42 national security payload for the U.S. government.
A United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket climbed into space Saturday from California with a $1.6 billion polar-orbiting weather satellite for NOAA, the first of four upgraded observatories designed to keep vital meteorological data flowing to forecasters for the next two decades.
