Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

A Northrop Grumman Cygnus supply ship — named the S.S. Katherine Johnson for the trailblazing NASA mathematician portrayed in “Hidden Figures” — was loaded with time-sensitive cargo Friday at a launch pad in Virginia for a midday blastoff Saturday toward the International Space Station.

NASA has partially restored the Hubble Space Telescope to science mode after a software error temporarily halted observations, but engineers continue studying a problem that kept the telescope’s aperture door from closing and a separate concern with Hubble’s main camera.

An Atlas 5 rocket and a Starliner crew capsule stand at pad 41 in these images taken at sunset Dec. 18.