Photos: Tuesday’s Atlas 5 rollout

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is awaiting liftoff from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad as soon as Tuesday after three scrubs caused by propellant loading problems and a boat that strayed into restricted waters in the Atlantic Ocean.

Under a brilliant moon, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket flashed to life and vaulted away from Cape Canaveral late Sunday, boosting the European Space Agency’s $1.5 billion Solar Orbiter probe out of Earth’s gravitational grip toward a multi-year voyage around the sun that will give scientists their first glimpse of the star’s poles.

Rising from the ground and into the launch pad gantry, a clandestine U.S. national security payload was fitted atop its Atlas 5 booster rocket in California today for the ride into space on March 1.