Video: Preparing Delta 2 and SMAP for flight

The SMAP observatory to map soil moisture distribution from 426 miles in space and its workhorse booster have been cleared for launch Thursday morning from 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.

Engineers have so far been unable to restart a balky radar aboard NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive environmental satellite launched in January, robbing scientists of the most detailed maps of how much water is locked up in the top layers of Earth’s land masses.