United Launch Alliance Makes Final Preparations Ahead Wednesday Night Rocket Launch from Cape Canaveral
By Space Coast Daily // November 3, 2025
ABOVE VIDEO: ULA’s Atlas V is launching the ViaSat-3 Flight 2 ultra-high-capacity broadband spacecraft for Viasat, a global technology company helping businesses, governments and communities transform their world through connectivity. Once in service, ViaSat-3 Flight 2 is expected to more than double the bandwidth capacity of Viasat’s entire existing satellite fleet.
BREVARD COUNTY • CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA – The Launch Readiness Review (LRR) is GO for Wednesday’s liftoff of the United Launch Alliance commercial Atlas V rocket with one of the most sophisticated and powerful commercial communications satellites — the ViaSat-3 Flight 2 ultra-high-capacity broadband spacecraft.
Liftoff is scheduled for 10:24 p.m. EST (0324 UTC) from Space Launch Complex-41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The LRR, led by ULA Launch Director James Whelan, was completed this morning at the Advanced Spaceflight Operations Center (ASOC).
Leadership from ULA, Viasat and Space Force assessed the readiness of the rocket, payload, mission assets and tracking support, discussed the status of pre-flight processing work, heard technical overviews of the countdown and flight, and previewed the weather forecast that projects a 95 percent chance of meeting the launch rules.
At the conclusion of the meeting, senior leaders were polled and gave a ready status for launch, then signed the Launch Readiness Certificate.
The Atlas V rocket, designated AV-100, stands 196 feet (59.7 meters) tall and will launch the payload into an elliptical geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO).
At liftoff, the rocket generates a combined thrust of 2.7 million pounds (12 megaNewtons) from its main engine and five solid rocket boosters.
ULA will offer live reports from launch control in our automatically refreshing blog beginning Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. EST (0030 UTC). The launch webcast starts at L-20 minutes.
