BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. — Launch day isn’t until Tuesday, but on Monday the Atlas V rocket went on a small mission: The slow crawl from the vertical integration facility to the launch site.

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The 3-million-pound, 225-foot-tall rocket crawled at just over 2 mph as it toward Launch Complex 41.

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After launching, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite will take the name GOES-18. It’ll eventually take the position of the most recently launched satellite, now off Hawaii, which had occasional failures.

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With a redesigned system, the new satellite will see from New Zealand all the way to the East Coast of the United States, tracking storms systems approaching from the Pacific.

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The launch window opens at 4:48 p.m. Tuesday afternoon. It will be carried on Channel 9 and here on WFTV.com.

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