Photos: News media images of Atlas 5 launch

Crews working on Virginia’s Eastern Shore this week raised a top secret payload for the National Reconnaissance Office — the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency — atop a solid-fueled Minotaur 4 rocket for liftoff July 15 on the first Minotaur launch in nearly three years.

The power and propulsion section of Orbital ATK’s next Cygnus supply ship, featuring new solar panel and fuel tank designs, arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Wednesday to be joined with a cargo module for a Dec. 3 launch to the International Space Station.

NASA has completed an exhaustive review of software problems and procedural oversights that prevented an unpiloted Boeing Starliner capsule from docking with the space station last year. The agency is implementing 80 recommendations to clear the way for a second test flight later this year and, if all goes well, Boeing’s first piloted flight next spring, officials said Tuesday.