Photos: Atlas 5 rolls out for launch

United Launch Alliance’s next-generation Vulcan rocket will lift off from the company’s existing Atlas 5 launch facilities in Florida and California, according to the company’s Vulcan program manager.

The Atlas 5 rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral for its pre-dawn ascent to deploy the NROL-52 payload for the National Reconnaissance Office.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 5:49 a.m. local time (8:49 a.m. EDT; 1249 GMT) Thursday on the classified National Reconnaissance Office NROL-55 mission.