Delta 4 launch seen from press viewing site (members only)

Two NASA spacecraft — the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission and the New Horizons probe at the edge of the solar system — have captured their first looks at their targets as they approach a pair of primordial relics for the first time.

NASA is sending into orbit Monday night a spacecraft to test a safer type of rocket fuel, an ultra-precise atomic clock that could change the way missions navigate in deep space, and an experiment to examine the resiliency of electronics to radiation.

An experiment-carrying, reusable mini space shuttle operated by the U.S. Air Force will be boosted into Earth orbit Wednesday atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.