Atlas 5 NROL-55 launch full broadcast

United Launch Alliance teams mounted a top secret payload for the National Reconnaissance Office on top of an Atlas 5 rocket Monday at Cape Canaveral in preparation for a liftoff scheduled just after sunset Nov. 3.

SpaceX is set to close out a record-breaking 2017 launch campaign Friday night with the delivery of 10 more Iridium voice and data relay satellites to orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

A shoebox-sized satellite conceived and funded by members of the Planetary Society, an advocacy organization co-founded by Carl Sagan, is fastened to an Atlas 5 rocket for launch Wednesday to test one of the late celebrity-astronomer’s futuristic concepts for exploring the cosmos.