Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Thursday from Cape Canaveral with the U.S. Space Force’s newest third-generation Global Positioning System navigation satellite, helping clear the way for the launch of SpaceX’s first operational Crew Dragon astronaut mission later this month.

Launch facilities at Cape Canaveral were spared any significant damage as Hurricane Dorian churned northward off Florida’s east coast earlier this week, and employees at the spaceport resumed their normal work Friday.

Take a walk around NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft less than three weeks before its Sept. 8 launch on top of an Atlas 5 rocket. Rich Kuhns, the mission’s program manager from Lockheed Martin, points out some of the major features on the probe.