Video: OA-7 Cygnus freighter arrives at its orbital destination

Early Friday morning, the 8-million-pound mobile service tower was retracted from around the Atlas 5 rocket, revealing the 189-foot-tall vehicle for liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, carrying the commercial WorldView 4 Earth-imaging satellite.

Wrapping up 109 days attached to the International Space Station, a Northrop Grumman Cygnus supply ship departed the orbiting research lab Tuesday to begin an extended four-month mission for additional technology demonstrations and smallsat deployments.

The launch from Cape Canaveral of a small U.S. military satellite built to track objects in geosynchronous orbit has been delayed from mid-July until August, an Air Force spokesperson said.