Video: Launch camera replays from Friday’s Falcon 9 blastoff

A clandestine satellite for the U.S. reconnaissance program was successfully launched by an Atlas 5 rocket today, riding a ferocious torrent of fire and smoke off the pad before disappearing behind a curtain of secrecy.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, standing 191 feet tall and and weighing 745,000 pounds, generates 860,000 pounds of thrust from its main engine to launch NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite-M.

Northrop Grumman test-fired a five-segment solid-fueled booster for NASA’s Space Launch System Wednesday at the company’s test facility in Promontory, Utah.