Photos: Tuesday’s Atlas 5 rollout

The United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket, standing 217 feet tall and weighing 900,000 pounds, unleashes 1.8 million pounds of thrust from its main engine and four side-mounted boosters at 6:53 p.m. EST (2353 GMT) Wednesday to launch the eighth Wideband Global SATCOM satellite for U.S. military communications.

Taking a U.S. national security satellite payload into space is the primary objective of the 70th Atlas 5 booster that will be launched Wednesday.

The bronze first stage of United Launch Alliance’s next Atlas 5 rocket arrived at its Cape Canaveral launch pad Friday, where it will be joined by five solid-fueled boosters, a Centaur upper stage and a U.S. Air Force communications satellite in the coming weeks ahead of liftoff set for June 27.