Photos: Atlas 5 rocket powers NROL-52 payload to space

Gearing up for the third Falcon 9 launch in less than two-and-a-half weeks, SpaceX fired up a rocket booster at Cape Canaveral on Thursday ahead of an early morning launch Tuesday with an Indonesian communications satellite.

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft today moved a step closer to starting a voyage to explore an uncharted world in our solar system — the mountain-sized Asteroid Bennu — by joining the booster rocket that will propel it from Earth next week.

Good weather for launching a rocket is forecast for Cape Canaveral and the Space Coast on Thursday morning when a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 is scheduled to take flight.