Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

Rocketing through gloomy skies with a payload clouded in a veil of secrecy, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket fired away from Cape Canaveral on Tuesday to deploy a satellite thousands of miles above Earth.

NASA has announced the nine finalists for the name of the space agency’s next Mars rover — scheduled for launch in July — and invited the public to vote on the candidates before making a final selection in the coming months.

United Launch Alliance has completed stacking of the major elements of the Atlas 5 rocket assigned to power NASA’s Perseverance rover toward Mars, but the mission’s launch date has been pushed back three days to July 20 after teams repaired an issue with a crane in the Atlas 5’s assembly building.