Photos: Atlas 5 launches SBIRS GEO Flight 3

The 60 satellites SpaceX is set to launch Wednesday night, beginning the build-out of a broadband network of orbiting spacecraft that could eventually number thousands, are based on a new flat-panel design, with krypton-fueled plasma thrusters, high-power antennas, and a capability to autonomously steer away from other objects in space.

These photos taken Friday evening show the mobile gantry being wheeled away from a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket at Cape Canaveral, hours before its scheduled blastoff with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe.

Spaceflight Now’s readers sent in photos from Thursday night’s launch of four NASA satellites aboard an Atlas 5 rocket, marking a fiery start to a mission probing the fundamental workings of the magnetic bubble shielding Earth from cosmic radiation.