Photos: More shots of Thursday’s Atlas 5 rocket launch

Sky-watchers with a passion for looking up and tracking satellites with remarkable precision have made quick work of locating the spacecraft launched atop an Atlas 5 rocket on Thursday.

Plans to launch a Navy communications satellite aboard an Atlas 5 rocket early Monday have been interrupted by Tropical Storm Erika, an unpredictable cyclone with its sights on Florida.

Technicians inched the two halves of the Atlas 5’s aluminum nose cone around NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to package the asteroid sample return probe, then moved the satellite to the rocket’s assembly building and hoisted it aboard the two-stage booster during the final days of August for the Sept. 8 launch.