Photos: Tuesday’s Atlas 5 rollout

The United Launch Alliance Delta 2 was launched Saturday at 6:22 a.m. local time with NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

The belated launch of a powerful Earth-imaging satellite that will take the highest resolution pictures in the market, postponed by an unprecedented wildfire near the pad, is scheduled to fly on Friday.

NASA is working with the Russian space agency to potentially extend crew stays on the International Space Station, the agency’s acting administrator said last week, as a cushion against expected delays in the development of commercial crew capsules by Boeing and SpaceX.