The Atlas 5 rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral for its pre-dawn ascent to deploy the NROL-52 payload for the National Reconnaissance Office.
Credit: United Launch Alliance
See earlier NROL-52 coverage.
Atlas 5
Atlas 5 blasts off with Solar Orbiter
Under a brilliant moon, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket flashed to life and vaulted away from Cape Canaveral late Sunday, boosting the European Space Agency’s $1.5 billion Solar Orbiter probe out of Earth’s gravitational grip toward a multi-year voyage around the sun that will give scientists their first glimpse of the star’s poles.
