Photos: More shots of Thursday’s Atlas 5 rocket launch

A weather satellite set to bring new storm tracking capabilities to the western United States and the Pacific Ocean rode into space atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket Thursday.

Andrew Driesman is project manager for NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, leading a team of engineers and operators in charge of the first mission to fly through the sun’s atmosphere.

SpaceX and its visionary founder Elon Musk win the lion’s share of public attention in the commercial rocket arena, with dramatic, increasingly routine booster landings and spectacular stunts like the launch of Musk’s Tesla Roadster on the maiden flight of the company’s new Falcon Heavy rocket last month.