NOAA’s next geostationary weather satellite, GOES-S, was raised on top of an Atlas 5 launcher Friday at Cape Canaveral in preparation for liftoff March 1 to keep watch over the Pacific Ocean and the Western United States.
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.
The Atlas rocket to launch four formation-flying spacecraft for NASA in March began to take shape Wednesday at the assembly building adjacent to the Complex 41 pad.