Atlas 5 NROL-55 launch full broadcast

With five side-mounted solid rocket boosters for added power, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket successfully deployed the U.S. Navy’s fifth MUOS mobile communications satellite.

United Launch Alliance encapsulated the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R, GOES-R, on Oct. 21 at the Astrotech payload processing facility in Titusville, Florida.

Engineers working for Spaceflight, a Seattle-based launch services company, are in the final steps of preparing for the first launch of new robotic free flyers carrying more than 70 small government and commercial satellites into polar orbit later this year aboard a dedicated flight of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.