Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

House lawmakers this week proposed to fund NASA’s human-rated lunar lander development program at less than one-fifth of the level the Trump administration wanted, but NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Wednesday the House budget bill is just the “opening salvo” in an appropriations process that now goes to the Senate.

Beginning its fourth launch campaign of the year, the Atlas 5 rocket program has started stacking the vehicle that will boost a satellite 11,000 miles high for the Global Positioning System.

The 32-story-tall mobile service tower at the Delta 4’s launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California was retracted away from the rocket Thursday in advance of a planned liftoff with a top secret National Reconnaissance Office payload.