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Orbital ATK beats out Aerojet in ULA booster selection
United Launch Alliance has selected Orbital ATK to provide solid rocket boosters for the company's next-generation Vulcan launcher, and will switch the workhorse Atlas 5 to the new booster supplier by the end of 2018, officials said Tuesday.
Boeing rejects bid to buy ULA as engine race heats up
Boeing said Wednesday it has turned down an offer from Aerojet Rocketdyne to buy United Launch Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed Martin joint venture that operates the Atlas and Delta rocket fleets.
Build-up of crew access tower begins at Atlas 5 pad
A new fixture on the Cape Canaveral skyline began rising Tuesday with the placement of the first of seven segments for a 200-foot-tall crew access tower at the Atlas 5 rocket's seaside launch pad for astronauts boarding Boeing's new commercial CST-100 Starliner spaceship.
Photos: Atlas 5 puts on predawn sky show
Streaking away from Cape Canaveral less than an hour before sunrise Wednesday, an Atlas 5 launcher painted a memorable spectacle in the skies over Florida, catching the first rays of the morning as it rocketed out of the stratosphere with a U.S. Navy communications satellite.
Swiss company to move Atlas 5 work to Alabama
Ruag Space, the Swiss manufacturer of nose shrouds for the Atlas 5 rocket, plans to relocate production of Atlas launcher components to United Launch Alliance's rocket assembly plant in Decatur, Alabama.
Citizen-funded CubeSat ready to go solar sailing
A shoebox-sized satellite conceived and funded by members of the Planetary Society, an advocacy organization co-founded by Carl Sagan, is fastened to an Atlas 5 rocket for launch Wednesday to test one of the late celebrity-astronomer's futuristic concepts for exploring the cosmos.
ULA, SpaceX face off in landmark Air Force launch competition
The U.S. Air Force has identified the launch of a next-generation GPS navigation satellite for the first in a series of competitive rocket procurements between United Launch Alliance and SpaceX, service officials announced Wednesday.
More views of Thursday night’s Atlas 5 launch
Spaceflight Now's readers sent in photos from Thursday night's launch of four NASA satellites aboard an Atlas 5 rocket, marking a fiery start to a mission probing the fundamental workings of the magnetic bubble shielding Earth from cosmic radiation.
Atlas 5 launch pad being prepared for astronaut crews
Work on Boeing's CST-100 commercial crew capsule will ramp up at the program's new home base in Florida this year, with construction of a crew access tower at the Atlas 5 rocket's launch pad underway and assembly of a spacecraft test article due to begin in a converted space shuttle hangar.
Readers share their views of Tuesday’s Atlas 5 launch
A powerful Atlas 5 rocket fitted with a kerosene-burning main engine and five solid-fueled boosters lit up Florida's Space Coast with Tuesday night's blastoff carrying a U.S. Navy communications satellite into orbit. We present a sample of launch photos submitted by Spaceflight Now's readers.