Photos: Tuesday’s Atlas 5 rollout

In addition to carrying an Air Force electric propulsion thruster test, a materials research investigation sponsored by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center will be flying aboard the X-37B miniature spaceplane later this month.

There were more successful space launches in 2014 than in any year since 1992, with Russia, the United States and China responsible for more than 80 percent of global launch activity.

Four veteran astronauts have been selected to train for launch aboard new commercial crew capsules being built by Boeing and SpaceX that are intended to ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station starting in 2017, NASA announced Thursday.