Photos: Tuesday’s Atlas 5 rollout

Preparing for its eighth launch of the year, the Atlas 5 rocket program has begun stacking the vehicle that will deploy a commercial satellite to provide Internet connectivity to rural America.

Liftoff of an Ariane 5 rocket from a tropical launch pad in South America was halted moments after its main engine ignited Tuesday in a rare last-second abort for the heavy-lift launcher.

Already shrouded in the Atlas 5 rocket’s Extra Extended Payload Fairing (XEPF) aluminum nose cone, the National Reconnaissance Office’s NROL-61 satellite was delivered to Cape Canaveral’s Vertical Integration Facility on Tuesday, July 19 and lifted aboard the United Launch Alliance vehicle for flight.