Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

NASA has completed an exhaustive review of software problems and procedural oversights that prevented an unpiloted Boeing Starliner capsule from docking with the space station last year. The agency is implementing 80 recommendations to clear the way for a second test flight later this year and, if all goes well, Boeing’s first piloted flight next spring, officials said Tuesday.

The mobile service tower retracts from the Atlas 5 rocket, revealing the 197-foot-tall vehicle for liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, carrying the classified NROL-42 national security payload for the U.S. government.

In preparation for liftoff Dec. 18 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, the powerful Internet-from-space broadcasting satellite called EchoStar 19 was encapsulated in the nose cone.