Stats: Delta 4 history and backlog (updated March 30)

United Launch Alliance could load cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen propellants into a Vulcan rocket test article at Cape Canaveral for the first time in the coming weeks, timing key tests for the next-generation rocket in between flights of Atlas 5 rockets that will share the same launch complex for the next few years.

Perspectives of Friday’s United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket flight were snapped from a commercial airliner, a satellite observer in Australia and the booster itself.

Freed from a legal restriction officials said limited its ability to compete for future U.S. military satellite launches, United Launch Alliance has ordered 20 new RD-180 engines from Russia that will keep the Atlas 5 rocket flying into the early 2020s.