Photos: Atlas launch seen from pad cameras

America’s next Mars rover, a $2.1 billion nuclear-powered vehicle to search for evidence that life once existed there, will be launched to the Red Planet in the summer of 2020 by a powerful Atlas 5 rocket.

Poised for its one and only satellite launch of the year, the National Reconnaissance Office will conduct a hush-hush flight Thursday using a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket from California.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket leaves Space Launch Complex 3-East at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on the NROL-42 satellite-deployment mission for the National Reconnaissance Office.