Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for Friday launch to GPS constellation

Culminating years of construction and testing, a $1.2 billion satellite designed to spot and track enemy missiles threatening the United States homeland, its deployed military forces abroad or allied nations will ascend to a surveillance post in space Thursday.

Spaceflight Now Members can watch a time-lapse replay of the Atlas 5 rocket’s rollout to pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station before the launch of the U.S. Air Force’s AEHF 5 communications satellite.

A new satellite joined Russia’s Glonass navigation fleet Saturday with a successful launch on top of a Soyuz rocket into an orbit nearly 12,000 miles above Earth.