Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars

United Launch Alliance recently raised a Delta 4-Heavy rocket, one of four left in the company’s backlog, vertical on its launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California in preparation for liftoff with a top secret U.S. government spy satellite at the end of April.

The 8-million-pound mobile service tower is retracted from around the Atlas 5 rocket, revealing the 20-story-tall vehicle for liftoff from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California.

This zoomed-in shot shows SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket firing off launch pad 39A Thursday with the U.S. military’s X-37B spaceplane.