Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

The fifth and final satellite for the U.S. Navy’s new mobile network to provide rugged smartphone communications to all branches of the military has arrived at the launch site for blastoff in May.

A four-man crew led by a former NASA astronaut intends to blast off early next year aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule for a flight to the International Space Station, the first such purely commercial, non-government flight to orbit in space history, officials said Tuesday.

These narrated videos show the pre-launch preparations that readied the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket and the Orbital ATK Cygnus commercial cargo-delivery spacecraft for flight and rolling to Complex 41 for liftoff to the International Space Station.