Live coverage: ULA’s heavy-lift rocket lifts off from California

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket departs Vandenberg Air Force Base today at 10:30 a.m. local time (1:30 p.m. EST; 1830 GMT) to deliver the commercial WorldView 4 Earth-imaging satellite into polar orbit for DigitalGlobe.

This collection of official NASA photographs captures the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket rolling to the pad on Monday, successfully blasting off Tuesday and the Cygnus freighter arriving at the International Space Station on Saturday morning.

NASA officials have determined that the robotic InSight lander is ready for its mission to Mars after concluding that the probe should not suffer the same flaw that led to a crack in a heat shield undergoing tests for the space agency’s Mars 2020 rover, InSight’s chief scientist said Monday.