Photos: Pad cameras capture Atlas 5 launch

United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket made its way back to the pad at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday morning for a mission carrying national security mission payloads, collectively codenamed Silentbarker. Liftoff has been rescheduled for at 8:47 a.m. EDT (1247 UTC).

NASA and SpaceX officials are moving forward with preparations to launch the next commercial Crew Dragon mission to the International Space Station next week after a Flight Readiness Review Thursday, pending a final evaluation of a discovery by SpaceX that it has potentially been loading slightly more propellant than expected into its Falcon 9 rockets.

Europe’s first mission to Mercury, a quartet of Galileo navigation spacecraft, the world’s first global winds observatory, and a new European weather satellite have arrived at an equatorial launch base in French Guiana in preparation for launches in the coming months.