Watch a replay of the Delta 4 NROL-47 launch

Prognosticators are predicting favorable weather conditions to launch an Atlas 5 rocket Thursday and send NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on its interplanetary journey to interrogate an asteroid and collect a surface sample for return to Earth.

United Launch Alliance recently raised a Delta 4-Heavy rocket, one of four left in the company’s backlog, vertical on its launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in preparation for liftoff with a top secret U.S. government spy satellite at the end of April.

The privately-funded Israeli Beresheet lunar lander is ready for its historic mission to the moon, aiming to become the first space probe to land on another planetary body without government funding.