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

“We had a terrific ride into space aboard the United Launch Alliance’s Delta 2 vehicle. They deposited us exactly where we wanted to be with with accuracy and precision,” said Kent Kellogg, NASA’s SMAP project manager.

NASA officials cleared Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft for flight Thursday after a “thorough and comprehensive” review of the crew capsule’s readiness, setting the stage for final pre-launch preparations at Cape Canaveral ahead of liftoff Dec. 20 on an unpiloted demonstration mission to the International Space Station.

NASA has selected two robotic missions to visit asteroids in the early 2020s from a field of proposed interplanetary probes, approving projects to explore a metallic relic from the early solar system and a half-dozen so-called Trojan objects left over from the formation of the outer planets.