Live coverage: Atlas 5 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch an Intelsat communications satellite with a NASA-funded air pollution monitor to be positioned over the Americas in 2022, officials announced Tuesday.

A technical issue with the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket that will send NASA’s $2.4 billion Perseverance rover toward Mars has pushed the mission’s launch date back to no earlier than July 30, nearly two weeks into a month-long window for the rover to head to the Red Planet, or else face a two-year delay.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, standing 191 feet tall and and weighing 745,000 pounds, generates 860,000 pounds of thrust from its main engine to launch NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-M.