Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

The skeleton of NASA’s next Orion capsule, set for launch in late 2018 on a test flight to lunar orbit without astronauts, has passed a pressurization test at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The Centaur upper stage launching the Cygnus space freighter Tuesday persevered through a velocity shortfall from the first stage of the Atlas 5 rocket, improvising with a longer firing to reach the correct orbit.

A tropical storm barreling towards the Florida peninsula caused United Launch Alliance (ULA) to stand down from an Atlas 5 launch planned for Tuesday on a mission for the National Reconnaissance Office.