Photos: Tuesday’s Atlas 5 rollout

This is our comprehensive fact sheet previewing the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket deployment of the classified NROL-42 payload for the National Reconnaissance Office.

The Centaur upper stage launching the Cygnus space freighter Tuesday persevered through a velocity shortfall from the first stage of the Atlas 5 rocket, improvising with a longer firing to reach the correct orbit.

For the second day running, bad weather at Cape Canaveral forced the postponement of the NROL-52 satellite launch. Today, the weather officer stopped the countdown with 97 seconds left.