Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

A model of NASA’s Orion spacecraft, in development to loft astronaut crews into deep space, was dropped from a U.S. Air Force cargo plane over Arizona on Wednesday in the latest in a series of tests to verify the capsule’s parachutes are up to the job of safely landing with humans on-board.

Watch the pre-launch news conference held Monday, March 21 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to preview liftoff of the Orbital ATK commercial Cygnus cargo ship aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket for the International Space Station.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Monday, heading due east over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver the JCSAT 18/Kacific 1 communications satellite into orbit around 33 minutes later.