Video: Groundbreaking for commercial crew access tower

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, standing 194 feet tall and and weighing 950,000 pounds, unleashes 1.5 million pounds of thrust from its main engine and two side-mounted boosters at 8:37 a.m. EDT today to launch the National Reconnaissance Office’s NROL-61 satellite from Cape Canaveral.

The new Cygnus XL spacecraft will deliver more than 11,000 pounds (4,990 kg) of food, science supplies and cargo to the International Space Station. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 6:11 a.m. EDT (2211 UTC).

Almost exactly three days after taking off a few miles to the north at the Kennedy Space Center on SpaceX’s historic first crew launch, a 15-story-tall Falcon rocket booster returned to Florida’s Space Coast Tuesday aboard a football field-sized drone ship.