United Launch Alliance

These images from United Launch Alliance and NASA photographers recorded the liftoff of a Delta 4-Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral on Aug. 12 with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe.

This video released by United Launch Alliance shows the Delta 4-Heavy rocket’s predawn liftoff Aug. 12 from the perspective of a downward-facing camera, capturing dazzling views of the fiery takeoff and the dramatic separation of the launcher’s two hydrogen-fueled boosters.

Driven by three RS-68A main engines, a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket lifted off early Sunday from Cape Canaveral carrying NASA’s Parker Solar Probe on a historic mission to study the sun.

Running a day late, a United Launch Alliance heavy-lift Delta 4 rocket thundered away from Cape Canaveral early Sunday, boosting NASA’s $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe into space on a daring seven-year mission to “touch the sun” with repeated trips through the star’s blazing outer atmosphere.

An automatic alarm in the final two minutes of the Delta 4-Heavy rocket’s countdown early Saturday forced officials to delay blastoff with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe by 24 hours.