Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket topped by the Air Force’s X-37B miniature space shuttle blasted off from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 today to deliver the spaceplane into orbit.

Nearly two months after NASA’s Juno spacecraft slipped into orbit around Jupiter, the solar-powered probe made a passage 2,600 miles over the giant planet’s colorful banded clouds Saturday, the closest planned encounter during its 20-month exploration of the solar system’s largest world.

Hardware problems that cropped up earlier this month on the Hubble Space Telescope, now approaching the 31st anniversary of its launch, are the latest signs the observatory is showing its age.