A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket emerged from its vertical hangar Tuesday for the 1,800-foot journey to pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Drive Station, shifting into place for liftoff Thursday with NASA’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover.
Driving a cellular launch platform, the 197-foot-tall (60-meter) Atlas 5 rocket — tail quantity AV-088 — emerged from ULA’s Vertical Integration Facility quickly after 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) Tuesday. Lower than an hour later, the rocket was on pad 41, and groups started the method of connecting the launcher to floor provides of energy, propellant and different fluids.
The Atlas 5 is scheduled for launch Thursday throughout a two-hour window opening at 7:50 a.m. EDT (1150 GMT). It is going to be the fourth Atlas 5 launch of 2020, and the 85th flight of an Atlas 5 rocket because it debuted in August 2002.
The rocket procured by NASA for the launch of the Mars 2020 mission will fly within the “541” configuration, with a 5.Four-meter (17.7-foot) diameter payload fairing, 4 strap-on strong rocket boosters supplied by Aerojet Rocketdyne, and a Centaur higher stage powered by a hydrogen-fueled Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10 engine.
The primary stage major engine is a Russian-made RD-180 powerplant that may eat kerosene and liquid oxygen throughout the first four-and-a-half minutes of flight.
The Atlas 5 will fireplace the roughly 9,000-pound (Four.1-metric ton) spacecraft away from Earth with a relative velocity of 24,785 mph, or about 11 kilometers per second, in keeping with ULA. Separation of the Mars 2020 spacecraft is anticipated 57 minutes after liftoff.
Pictures of the Atlas 5 rocket’s rollout to pad 41 are posted beneath.
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