Video: Liftoff of Atlas 5 rocket with Mexico’s Morelos 3

The most powerful variants of the Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets have been purchased by the Air Force to launch intelligence-gathering spacecraft for the U.S. government, and NASA has bought an Atlas 5 to deploy a critical polar-orbiting weather satellite.

Ready for blastoff just after sunset Wednesday with a classified payload for the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket rolled out to its launch pad at Cape Canaveral late Tuesday afternoon after an unplanned trip back inside its integration building for repairs.

An Orbital ATK Minotaur 4 rocket partially powered by modified motors from a Cold War-era nuclear missile lifted off early Saturday from Cape Canaveral with a small U.S. military satellite to help track other objects in space. The solid-fueled launcher took off at 2:04 a.m. EDT (0604 GMT) after a weather delay.