Stats: Delta 4 history and manifest

A Russian X-ray astronomy satellite with major contributions from German and U.S. scientists and instrument developers arrived Thursday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for a launch in June aboard a Proton rocket.

Follow the unclassified portion of the Atlas 5 rocket’s ascent to space from California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base launch site with the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office’s NROL-79 satellite payload. Launch is scheduled for Wednesday at 9:50 a.m. local time (12:50 p.m. EST; 1750 GMT).

There was a groundbreaking Friday at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 to start building the astronaut access tower to board Boeing’s CST-100 capsules atop United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rockets.