Watch a live view of the Atlas 5 launch pad with countdown audio (members only)

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.

United Launch Alliance’s next-generation Vulcan rocket will lift off from the company’s existing Atlas 5 launch facilities in Florida and California, according to the company’s Vulcan program manager.

A Soyuz rocket launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:55 a.m. EST (0655 GMT) Sunday with the Arktika-M 1 spacecraft, the first in a new line of Russian satellites designed to provide weather observations over the Arctic.