Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

The man in charge of the Orion crew capsule program at Lockheed Martin is a lifelong veteran of the space program, beginning his tenure at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in the late 1970s before taking posts in Washington and joining Lockheed Martin to lead the company’s work on the nation’s new spacecraft for journeys beyond Earth orbit.

The United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket, standing 206 feet tall and and weighing 720,000 pounds, unleashes 1.1 million pounds of thrust from its main engine and two side-mounted boosters at 12:52 a.m. EDT (0452 today to launch the GSSAP No. 3 and No. 4 satellites for the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program from Cape Canaveral.

In nearly five years on the job as Boeing’s Space Launch System program manager, John Shannon has presided over the completion of the first SLS core stage inside a cavernous factory in New Orleans.