Video: Weather causes Atlas 5 countdown hold

Ground crews finished the initial build-up of the last “single stick” medium-lift variant of United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4 rocket on its launch pad at Cape Canaveral last week in preparation for liftoff with a GPS navigation satellite July 25.

The fifth and final satellite for the U.S. Navy’s new mobile network to provide rugged smartphone communications to all branches of the military has arrived at the launch site for blastoff in May.

A top secret surveillance payload owned by the National Reconnaissance Office soared into space Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on top of a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket, entering an unusual orbit not previously used by the U.S. government’s spy satellite fleet.