Video: Preparing Delta 2 and SMAP for flight

NASA, United Launch Alliance and Air Force officials hold the pre-launch news conference for the Delta 2 rocket with the agency’s SMAP environmental satellite from Vandenberg Air Force Base on Jan. 27.

NASA’s innovative soil moisture mapper, a new environmental satellite launching in January, has been fueled up for blastoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

These narrated videos show the pre-launch preparations that readied the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket and the Orbital ATK Cygnus commercial cargo-delivery spacecraft for flight and rolling to Complex 41 for liftoff to the International Space Station.