Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

A European Ariane 5 rocket is scheduled for blastoff  Tuesday from a jungle launch pad in South America with two geostationary telecom payloads — one owned by a Saudi Arabian operator and built in Colorado by Lockheed Martin, and another for India’s space agency.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, standing 194 feet tall and and weighing 720,000 pounds, generates 860,000 pounds of thrust from its main engine to launch the Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo ship on the OA-7 mission to the International Space Station.

An early bird rocket launch from the Florida spaceport will take to the skies before dawn Thursday when an Atlas 5 lofts a classified U.S. government satellite.