Photos: Tuesday’s Atlas 5 rollout

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has been hoisted on top of its United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral for liftoff this month, passing a major pre-launch milestone after teams repaired a small leak on the launch vehicle and overcame delays caused by coronavirus cases among staff working on the mission.

The launch faced long odds with poor weather in the forecast for a fourth day in a row, but SpaceX was able to launch from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday, Sept. 11, at 9:56 p.m. EDT (0156 UTC).

Likened to raising a cellular tower 22,300 miles high, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket will put the Navy’s fourth mobile communications satellite into space to expands the rugged smartphone system to global coverage.