Atlas 5/Cygnus NASA TV broadcast

The head of the launch enterprise directorate at the U.S. Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, Claire Leon, spoke with reporters March 15 about the military’s award of a GPS launch contract to SpaceX, and she discussed plans for more head-to-head launch contract competitions in the coming months.

Watch the post-launch news conference from the Kennedy Space Center following the successful launch of an Atlas 5 rocket on December 6, carrying the Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo ship bound for the International Space Station.

Air Force ground controllers have activated service aboard the newest Global Positioning System satellite, achieving that milestone for the final spacecraft in a dozen built in a manufacturing batch to update the constellation.