Shuttle Atlantis unwrapped ahead of public debut

Mike Laidley leads development of Orbital ATK’s Next Generation Launch system, a rocket the commercial space company hopes will provide a foothold in the lucrative market to launch U.S. military satellites, a business currently dominated by SpaceX and United Launch Alliance.

Boeing engineers are outfitting two decommissioned space shuttle hangars at the Kennedy Space Center for the U.S. Air Force’s secretive X-37B space plane.

The towering structure to be used for liftoffs of NASA’s Space Launch System rolled from a construction site to launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida this week, arriving at the seaside complex Friday for a week of fit checks.