Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

Departing on three pillars of fire, the United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket lifted off at 1:51 p.m. from Cape Canaveral for a classified national security satellite deployment.

The quartet touched down at the Launch and Landing Facility around 1:45 p.m. EST (1845 UTC). They’re set to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Friday, March 1, at 12:04 a.m.

Later this month, ground teams will send commands for the InSight lander on Mars to use its robotic arm in a series of carefully-choreographed movements to help inspect, and potentially assist, one of the mission’s main geologic instruments that stalled as it hammered into the Red Planet’s crust earlier this year.