Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

The slide system differs notably from the slide wire basket system used over at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. NASA officials said pad 40 will be ready for astronaut launches this year.

Sending the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on an interplanetary trajectory to Asteroid Bennu, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket thunders away from Cape Canaveral Thursday at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT).

United Launch Alliance and SpaceX recently won contracts worth $739 million to send six missions into orbit for the U.S. military, and the Air Force has announced a new title for its flagship launcher program, dropping “expendable” from the name in a new era of reusable rockets.