Video: Mars Pathfinder pre-launch preparations

The first in NOAA’s new series of polar-orbiting weather satellites has been lifted atop United Launch Alliance’s second-to-last Delta 2 rocket on a launch pad in California, ready for encapsulation and final checkouts ahead of a predawn launch set for Nov. 10.

A Delta 2 rocket boosted by nine strap-on motors and two liquid-fueled stages will launch NOAA’s JPSS 1 weather satellite into a 511-mile-high (822-kilometer) orbit following liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

United Launch Alliance plans to assemble leftover parts for a Delta 2 rocket display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida alongside other icons of U.S. rocketry, the company announced Saturday soon after the final Delta 2 launch.