Live coverage: Atlas 5 countdown and launch journal

NASA’s ICESat 2 satellite has been bolted atop a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California as ground teams prepare for the final liftoff of the workhorse launcher Sept. 15.

Watch the Atlas 5 rocket and OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return spacecraft pre-launch news conference and the mission science briefing held on Launch-minus 2 days at the Kennedy Space Center.

Blue Origin, the rocket company owned by Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos, has won a $3.4 billion NASA contract to build an Artemis lunar lander that will provide a downstream alternative to the Starship variant already being developed by SpaceX, the agency announced Friday.