Live coverage: Delta 4 countdown and launch journal

Headed to a relic from the solar system’s formation over four billion years ago, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx sample return craft was moved to Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 launch pad today in preparation for liftoff Thursday aboard an Atlas 5 rocket en route to Asteroid Bennu hoping to find the seeds of life.

The two structural elements of Orbital ATK’s OA-7 Cygnus space freighter were delivered to Kennedy Space Center for final assembly, the packing of cargo and launch to the International Space Station.

The 32-story-tall mobile service tower is retracted from the Delta 4 rocket at Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex 6 pad for the NROL-45 flight that will place a surveillance satellite into orbit for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office.