Live coverage: SpaceX Falcon 9 launches

A Falcon 9 rocket aborts its lift off at the final moment on February 28, 2016, as seen from the press site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The rocket was supposed to launch the SES 9 communication satellite and had already been delayed by fueling problems and a boat that strayed into the launch danger area off shore.

Getting off to a ground-shaking start, NASA’s $1.2 billion Psyche asteroid probe roared into space atop a Falcon Heavy rocket Friday, setting off on a 2.2-billion-mile voyage to a rare, metal-rich asteroid that may hold clues about how the cores of rocky planets like Earth first formed.

After scrubbing a launch attempt Nov. 29 due to a problem with a second stage umbilical, Rocket Lab launched seven small satellites on an Electron booster from New Zealand at 3:18 a.m. EST (0818 GMT) Friday. The Electron rocket lifted off with an upgraded first stage carrying new hardware to control the rocket’s re-entry before teams attempt to catch the booster on future missions for refurbishment and reuse.