Video: Preparing Delta 2 and SMAP for flight

These narrated videos show the pre-launch preparations that readied the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket and the Orbital ATK Cygnus commercial cargo-delivery spacecraft for flight and rolling to Complex 41 for liftoff to the International Space Station.

Engineers have so far been unable to restart a balky radar aboard NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive environmental satellite launched in January, robbing scientists of the most detailed maps of how much water is locked up in the top layers of Earth’s land masses.

This photo gallery shows NASA’s SMAP spacecraft arriving at the launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base’s Space Launch Complex 2 and being hoisted atop the United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket.