Video: Atlas 5 launch with GOES-S viewed from KSC press site (members only)

Successfully put through its countdown paces in a critical pre-flight test Thursday, America’s largest rocket currently in service moved closer to a June launch for the U.S. intelligence community.

The second flight of China’s new medium-lift Long March 7A rocket successfully placed an experimental satellite into orbit Thursday, following a failed launch of the same configuration last year caused by a problem in a booster liquid oxygen system.

The United Launch Alliance Delta 2 was launched Saturday at 6:22 a.m. local time with NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.