Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

Forecasters predict a 90% chance of good weather for liftoff of a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from Cape Canaveral just after sunset Tuesday with a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, fueled and buttoned up for liftoff Aug. 11 on the first mission to fly through the sun’s corona, arrived at its launch pad at Cape Canaveral early Tuesday after a convoy trip from a nearby fueling and test facility.

NASA has directed Boeing and SpaceX to halt activities under contracts awarded last month to build commercial space taxis to ferry astronauts to the Space Station while the U.S. Government Accountability Office reviews a protest of NASA’s decision filed by Sierra Nevada.