Photos: Tuesday’s Atlas 5 rollout

A new fixture on the Cape Canaveral skyline began rising Tuesday with the placement of the first of seven segments for a 200-foot-tall crew access tower at the Atlas 5 rocket’s seaside launch pad for astronauts boarding Boeing’s new commercial CST-100 Starliner spaceship.

United Launch Alliance teams ran through an 11-hour countdown Friday at Cape Canaveral to rehearse procedures before the first flight of a modified Atlas 5 rocket with Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule Dec. 20.

United Launch Alliance plans to introduce a new payload fairing design on the next-generation Vulcan rocket, which will fly with composite parts made by Switzerland-based Ruag Space, the company’s chief executive said Wednesday.