Video: X-37B payload mated to Atlas 5

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.

The second satellite in a quartet of new NOAA weather observatories is awaiting liftoff Thursday aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, heading for a position 22,000 miles from Earth to scan the western United States and Pacific Ocean for typhoons, wildfires and fog.

The 377th Delta rocket begins its journey to space carrying a military communications satellite funded by Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and New Zealand in a deal that gives the allies access to the U.S. military’s worldwide Wideband Global SATCOM system.