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

The Atlas 5 rocket emerges Monday 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.

America’s next Mars rover, a $2.1 billion nuclear-powered vehicle to search for evidence that life once existed there, will be launched to the Red Planet in the summer of 2020 by a powerful Atlas 5 rocket.

United Launch Alliance and Boeing teams worked through the weekend on closeouts of the Starliner crew capsule, inspections and final outfitting of the Atlas 5 rocket. A launch readiness review Tuesday approved the continuation of final preparations for liftoff from Cape Canaveral Friday of the first Starliner spacecraft on an unpiloted test flight to the International Space Station.