Photos: Atlas 5 on the pad at sunset

Rolling out on the eve of liftoff with the GOES-S weather satellite, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket journeyed 1,800 feet from its vertical assembly hangar to Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 launch pad Wednesday.

United Launch Alliance’s final Delta 2 rocket is now on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida, a monument to an industry workhorse that helped build the GPS navigation satellite fleet and enabled a new era of Mars exploration.

The U.S. Defense Department’s internal watchdog has opened a probe into whether the Pentagon’s contracts with United Launch Alliance were properly awarded after a former ULA executive implied the government rigged a recent procurement in favor of the company.