Shuttle Atlantis unwrapped ahead of public debut

Two key pieces of hardware needed for NASA’s next Mars rover — an Atlas rocket booster and sterile components of the rover’s sample collection system — recently arrived at Cape Canaveral ahead of the mission’s scheduled launch July 17.

For the second day running, computers automatically aborted a Falcon 9 launch countdown Monday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida in the final seconds before liftoff with the Intelsat 35e communications satellite.

SpaceX’s ground team hydraulically hoisted a 213-foot-tall Falcon 9 rocket vertical at pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center before dawn Monday ahead of a planned liftoff with a space station-bound robotic resupply craft.