Q&A with Tory Bruno, ULA’s chief executive

Watch the pre-launch news conference held Monday, March 21 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to preview liftoff of the Orbital ATK commercial Cygnus cargo ship aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket for the International Space Station.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, standing 191 feet tall and and weighing 720,000 pounds, unleashes 860,000 pounds of thrust from its main engine at 9:49:51 a.m. local time today to launch the secret NROL-79 payload for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

United Launch Alliance has begun stacking its first Atlas 5 rocket to fly in service to the International Space Station, a commercial mission to send supplies to the orbiting complex.