TDRS-M Atlas V Second Stage Centaur Off-Site Vertical Integratio

At the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, a United Launch Alliance Centaur upper stage has been mated to an Atlas V booster. The rocket is scheduled to launch the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite, TDRS-M. It will be the latest spacecraft destined for the agency's constellation of communications satellites that allows nearly continuous contact with orbiting spacecraft ranging from the International Space Station and Hubble Space Telescope to the array of scientific observatories. Liftoff atop the ULA Atlas V rocket is scheduled to take place from Cape Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 41 in early August.