Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

Air Force meteorologists are expecting good weather to launch the Delta 4 rocket with a military communications satellite when the sun goes down Friday evening at Cape Canaveral.

In the span of two weeks, United Launch Alliance technicians performed the basic buildup of the Atlas 5 rocket and then mated the advanced GOES-R weather satellite that will be hauled into space on Saturday.

Soaring in fine fashion before daybreak, a United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket maneuvered a new spy satellite into a unique retrograde orbit Wednesday morning to join an expanding constellation of radar-imaging spacecraft.