Video: NROL-37 payload and Delta 4-Heavy rocket prepped for launch

This collection of official NASA photographs captures the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket rolling to the pad on Monday, successfully blasting off Tuesday and the Cygnus freighter arriving at the International Space Station on Saturday morning.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is scheduled to take off Thursday from Florida’s Space Coast with a secret cargo for the National Reconnaissance Office, which broke with standard practice to procure the launch commercially, outside of the government’s established contracting schemes.

With the Atlas 5 rocket that will boost it into space now assembled and waiting, a $408 million NASA communications satellite is in final preparations for its science data relay mission.