Watch a live view of the Atlas 5 launch pad with countdown audio (members only)

Technicians inched the two halves of the Atlas 5’s aluminum nose cone around NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to package the asteroid sample return probe, then moved the satellite to the rocket’s assembly building and hoisted it aboard the two-stage booster during the final days of August for the Sept. 8 launch.

Fans of classical mythology and the fictional Star Trek universe can vote for two new candidates as the name of United Launch Alliance’s next generation rocket, with Vulcan and Zeus joining three other options in an online poll revealed earlier this week.

When the first Delta 2 rocket took off on Valentine’s Day 1989, ideas like navigating by smartphone and driving robots on Mars were science fiction. More than 150 launches over the last 30 years helped change all that.