Atlas/Cygnus pre-launch news conference

Boeing specialists working inside a former space shuttle hangar in Florida started fueling the company’s first spaceflight-ready Starliner capsule this week ahead of the ship’s rollout to its launch pad later this month. The fueling milestone is a major step in the Starliner launch campaign, and comes after engineers concluded that human error led to a parachute deployment malfunction during a crew capsule abort test Monday.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket with a new type of solid rocket booster emerged from its hangar Tuesday evening for the 1,800-foot rollout to pad 41 at Cape Canaveral, moving into position for liftoff Wednesday with a classified National Reconnaissance Office payload.

The launch of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, on the verge of kicking off a seven-year mission culminating in passages through the sun’s atmosphere, has been delayed to Aug. 6 to resolve a technical snag encountered during encapsulation of the spacecraft inside the nose shroud of its United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket.