Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus XL rocket will take about 11 minutes to place NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, satellite into a roughly 357-mile-high (575-kilometer) orbit after an airborne launch off Florida’s east coast.

The center section of SpaceX’s first Falcon Heavy rocket has been test-fired at the launch company’s test facility in Central Texas, a sign of progress toward the behemoth booster’s long-delayed maiden mission scheduled some time in the final months of 2017.

The Atlas 5 rocket emerges from the Vertical Integration Facility for rollout to Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral in preparation to launch the Orbital ATK Cygnus resupply ship to the International Space Station. Liftoff is set for Thursday at 5:55 p.m. EST.