The 330-foot-tall mobile service tower is rolled away from the United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket at Cape Canaveral’s pad 37B in the hours before the scheduled liftoff. The 9-million-pound gantry was retracted the length of a football field in preparation for launch of the Air Force’s WGS 9 communications satellite into Earth orbit.

The first launch of Boeing’s Starliner space capsule aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket has been delayed to Dec. 19, officials announced Tuesday.

NOAA’s newest weather satellite, heading for a perch with coverage over the western United States and the Pacific Ocean, launched March 1 from Cape Canaveral on top of an Atlas 5 rocket.