Video: Time-lapse of Atlas 5’s rollout for launch of GOES-S (members only)

An Atlas 5 rocket lifts off in the early morning Sun from Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral carrying a top secret satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. (Membership required)

Air Force meteorologists are giving good odds of acceptable weather conditions for the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket to fly Friday morning from Cape Canaveral to put a Navy mobile communications satellite into orbit.

New videos released Wednesday by SpaceX show the payload fairing from the company’s Falcon Heavy rocket plunging back into the atmosphere after launch June 25, trailing a wake of haunting blue super-heated plasma before unfurling a parafoil and landing in the net of an offshore recovery ship.