This photo gallery shows the U.S. Navy’s fourth Mobile User Objective System communications satellite, already encapsulated in the 18-foot-diameter nose cone, being lifted atop the United Launch Alliance Atlas-Centaur rocket last week at the Vertical Integration Facility.
Hoisting a 15,000-pound satellite atop an Atlas 5 rocket Wednesday, United Launch Alliance finished assembling its next space-bound booster for liftoff Aug. 31 in support of the U.S. Navy.
Joining the payload with its ride to space, United Launch Alliance crews today placed the next Global Positioning System satellite atop an Atlas 5 rocket for blastoff July 15.
Already encapsulated in the 18-foot-diameter nose cone, the Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane is hoisted atop the Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral’s Vertical Integration Facility.
The Air Force’s miniature space shuttle and its ride to orbit have been joined together inside an assembly building at Cape Canaveral in preparation for launch May 20.
The U.S. Air Force’s ninth Global Positioning System (GPS) 2F satellite, GPS 2F-9, is encapsulated in the Delta 4 rocket’s four-meter-diameter nose cone at a processing facility and then moved to the launch pad at Complex 37 for mating to its booster inside the mobile service tower.
NASA’s four Magnetospheric Multiscale mission spacecraft were encapsulated Feb. 23 in the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket’s nose cone at the commercial Astrotech processing campus in Titusville. Delivery of the payload to the Atlas 5 assembly building for mating occurred on Friday, Feb. 27.
Four NASA satellites that will create a constellation of formation-flying spacecraft were placed aboard their shared United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket Friday.