Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

Building on a mission canceled last year, NASA is developing a mobile robot named VIPER for launch in 2022 to scout for water ice at the moon’s south pole, the same region where the agency aims to land astronauts by 2024.

A satellite to provide residential Internet services across the U.S. was hoisted aboard its United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 booster on Saturday, Dec. 10 in preparation for liftoff on Sunday, Dec. 18.

The two missions will be launched within roughly three weeks of one another from New Zealand. Liftoff of the Electron rocket with the PREFIRE-1 satellite occurred at 7:41 p.m. NZST (3:41 a.m. EDT, 0741 UTC) on Saturday.