Lockheed Martin‘s first West Coast Atlas 5 rocket has successfully completed “booster on stand” (BOS) operations at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The rocket, which will carry a national security payload, is scheduled to launch next year. The BOS operation involved vertically stacking the rocket’s booster stage, Centaur upper stage and connecting segments at the newly refurbished Space Launch Complex 3 East.

“We are ushering in a new era of Atlas operations here on the West Coast,” James Sponnick, vice president of Lockheed Martin’s Atlas program, said in a prepared statement. “Seeing a new Atlas 5 on the pad caps a period of sustained construction, test and validation, and signifies a major milestone accomplishment by a very dedicated team.”