Photos: California’s predawn liftoff of Atlas 5 rocket

Narrated animation explains the United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket ascending to space with the NROL-37 mission for the National Reconnaissance Office through T+plus 6 minutes, 30 seconds before going into a news blackout.

Using industrial cranes at a no-frills launch pad on the eastern tip of Cape Canaveral, a team of Orbital ATK and U.S. Air Force technicians have fully stacked a modified Cold War-era missile set for launch next week with a $49 million satellite built to track other objects in orbit.

Departing Cape Canaveral at 8:37 a.m. EDT Thursday, the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted a classified national security satellite into orbit for deployment.