Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

The spacecraft launched in 2009 as the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission before making the pivot to become NEOWISE (Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) in 2010. NEOWISE is expected to safely burn up in the atmosphere by late 2024.

NASA has decided to launch the multibillion-dollar Europa Clipper mission — a spacecraft to study a moon of Jupiter with an icy crust covering a liquid water ocean — aboard a commercial heavy-lift rocket in October 2024, and not on the government-owned Space Launch System, officials said Wednesday.

This collection of official NASA photographs captures the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket rolling to the pad on Monday, successfully blasting off Tuesday and the Cygnus freighter arriving at the International Space Station on Saturday morning.