Video: DSCOVR prepared for launch

The U.S. military’s next GPS navigation satellite moved to a SpaceX launch facility late Thursday at Cape Canaveral, ready for attachment with a Falcon 9 rocket for liftoff June 30 to take the place of an aging GPS spacecraft launched from Florida’s Space Coast more than 20 years ago.

In preparation for liftoff Dec. 18 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, the powerful Internet-from-space broadcasting satellite called EchoStar 19 was encapsulated in the nose cone.

United Launch Alliance encapsulated the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R, GOES-R, on Oct. 21 at the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, Florida.