Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

A computer-triggered abort halted the countdown of a Falcon 9 rocket Sunday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, pushing back the next mission in SpaceX’s launch surge until at least Monday.

An early bird rocket launch from the Florida spaceport will take to the skies before dawn Thursday when an Atlas 5 lofts a classified U.S. government satellite.

SpaceX will perform a multi-hour experiment on the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket after the launcher deploys a Dragon supply ship on the way to the International Space Station Thursday, gathering thermal data and other information to verify the vehicle’s ability to perform long-duration missions and inject payloads into demanding, high-energy orbits.