Snapshots from Atlas 5 launch

Five years after winning $1 billion from NASA to mount the first U.S. asteroid sample return mission, scientists and engineers will get their last look at the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft this week as it is closed up inside the nose cone of an Atlas 5 rocket for launch in September.

A slide wire escape system has been undergoing tests at launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in readiness for the first SpaceX Crew Dragon flight to carry astronauts to the International Space Station.

The U.S. Navy’s Mobile User Objective System communications satellite No. 5 was encapsulated in the payload fairing at Astrotech on June 4 and then hoisted atop the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket at Complex 41 on June 13.