Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

Returning to the days of rollouts and launches in a span of only a few hours, the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 program is looking to resume this whirlwind experience.

The U.S. Air Force on Thursday demolished towers once used to assemble Delta 2 rockets at Cape Canaveral for missions to Mars, four dozen flights to deploy the GPS navigation network, and numerous launches with scientific, commercial and military payloads.

An Ariane 5 rocket will fire into the sky from French Guiana just after sunset Tuesday and deliver two payloads to orbit for Intelsat, one of the world’s largest commercial satellite operators, and Broadcasting Satellite System Corp. of Japan.