Q&A with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine (members only)

Critical operations were completed this morning by United Launch Alliance at Cape Canaveral to prepare two rockets for upcoming flights into space.

Kicking off United Launch Alliance’s ambitious 2016 with as many as 15 launches planned for the U.S. military, intelligence community, NASA and commercial clients, an Atlas 5 rocket will thunder to orbit Friday to deploy the last satellite in the current generation of GPS navigation spacecraft.

Check out imagery from Arianespace and the French space agency showing the launch of a Russian Soyuz rocket Dec. 29 from the Guiana Space Center in South America.