Photos: Navy satellite wrapped up in Atlas rocket nose cone

United Launch Alliance teams mounted a top secret payload for the National Reconnaissance Office on top of an Atlas 5 rocket Monday at Cape Canaveral in preparation for a liftoff scheduled just after sunset Nov. 3.

The launch from Cape Canaveral of a top secret spy satellite for the U.S. government was aborted at the last moment early Saturday as its United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket ignited three main engines, a dramatic cutoff of the countdown that will delay the mission by at least one week.

A military communications satellite, built with international funding from Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and New Zealand, has been stacked atop a Delta 4 rocket to launch into a worldwide information-relay network operated by the U.S.