Photos: Gantry retracted from Atlas 5

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.

With its liftoff just 18 days away to deploy a new Global Positioning System satellite, stacking of the next United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket began Monday at the vertical assembly building outside Complex 41.

Watch live video of launch pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as an Atlas 5 rocket is prepared to launch the ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission. The Atlas 5 rocket will be rolled from it’s Vertical Inegration Building (VIF) to the pad on Saturday morning.