Watch a live view of the Atlas 5 launch pad with countdown audio (members only)

Critical operations were completed this morning by United Launch Alliance at Cape Canaveral to prepare two rockets for upcoming flights into space.

A United Launch Atlas 5 rocket is set to launch the U.S. Air Force’s sixth and final Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite from Cape Canaveral. This timeline shows the major mission events planned over a nearly six-hour flight to an optimized geostationary transfer orbit.

NOAA’s new JPSS 1 weather satellite deployed from its Delta 2 launcher in an orbit more than 500 miles above Earth nearly one hour after blasting off from California.