Members only: Press site view of SpaceX’s 13th space station resupply launch

A sharp-eyed French military surveillance spacecraft is set for launch aboard a Soyuz rocket Monday from French Guiana into a 300-mile-high orbit, where it will collect the highest-resolution imagery ever produced by a European reconnaissance satellite.

Set to fly in its most powerful configuration with five solid rocket boosters, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket rolled out to Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 launch pad Tuesday in preparation for a planned blastoff two days later with a U.S. military communications satellite.

The Earth observing spacecraft will study clouds and aerosols to further our understanding of climate change. Liftoff happened at 3:20 p.m. PDT (6:20 p.m. EDT, 2220 UTC).