WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

Enclosed in its payload fairing, NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS-M) passes the Vehicle assembly Building at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on its way to the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. TDRS-M will be stacked atop the United Launch Alliance Atlas V Centaur upper stage. 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 on Aug. 18, 2017