Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

his photo gallery shows the classified National Reconnaissance Office payload, already encapsulated in the 14-foot-diameter nose cone, being lifted atop the United Launch Alliance Atlas-Centaur rocket at Cape Canaveral’s Vertical Integration Facility.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 8:29 a.m. EDT (1229 GMT) today to place NASA’s new tracking station into the sky. The data router will relay video, telemetry and science information from the space station and dozens of research satellites to a central ground terminal. Follow the ascent in our live journal.

This is video footage documenting stacking activities for the two-stage United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, standing 194 feet tall, to boost the commercial Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo freighter to the International Space Station. Activities occurred at Cape Canaveral’s Vertical Integration Facility.