This is the launch timeline to be followed by the Atlas 5 rocket’s ascent into space from Cape Canaveral with NASA’s Mars 2020 mission. Launch is scheduled for Thursday during a two-hour window opening at 7:50 a.m. EDT (1150 GMT).
The 197-foot-tall rocket will arc to the southeast from Florida’s Space Coast on its fourth flight of the year. It will be the 85th Atlas 5 launch overall since United Launch Alliance’s workhorse rocket debuted in August 2002.
The timeline below ends with the conclusion of the primary mission, the deployment of the Mars 2020 spacecraft on an interplanetary trajectory toward Mars
A video overview of the Atlas 5 launch sequence also describes the major milestones on the Mars 2020 mission, and a map below shows the Atlas 5’s expected ground track toward the southeast from Cape Canaveral, culminating in separation of the Mars 2020 spacecraft from the Centaur upper stage over Indonesia.
Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken donned their SpaceX-made launch and entry flight suits Saturday and rode to pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in a final dress rehearsal before launch day.
NASA and the U.S. Air Force are expected to return to normal operations Tuesday after lawmakers passed a budget bill Monday evening, ending a government funding lapse that threatened to cut off live television coverage of an International Space Station spacewalk and interrupt SpaceX launch operations in Florida and California.
Rocket Lab’s next launch from New Zealand, set for Friday, will carry a data recorder to measure the aerothermal environments encountered by the Electron launcher’s first stage during descent back into the atmosphere, information engineers say is crucial to successfully achieving the company’s newly-announced plan to recover and reuse the booster.