Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars

This collection of photographs shows the Air Force’s Wideband Global SATCOM communications satellite No. 7 being encapsulated in the United Launch Alliance Delta 4 nose cone and hoisted atop the rocket for launch July 22.

Here’s a look by the numbers of the previous Atlas 5 flight history and the current backlog and manifest for the rocket.

Boeing engineers are outfitting two decommissioned space shuttle hangars at the Kennedy Space Center for the U.S. Air Force’s secretive X-37B space plane.