Live coverage: Atlas 5 countdown and launch journal

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.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched Feb. 22 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with the Spanish Paz radar observation satellite and two prototypes for a planned broadband Internet network.

The sixth and final satellite in the U.S. military’s most secure satellite communications fleet lifted off from Cape Canaveral Thursday aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, extending the network’s expected lifetime beyond 2030.