Live coverage: SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 rocket set for launch Sunday

SpaceX launched a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office on Monday after a first stage sensor problem halted a countdown Sunday. Liftoff from launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida occurred at 7:15 a.m. EDT (1115 GMT), and the first stage landed at nearby Cape Canaveral around nine minutes later. The upper stage’s flight entered a pre-planned news blackout a few minutes after launch.

Japanese officials halted a countdown Monday at the Tanegashima Space Center when teams overseeing preparations for launch of an H-2A rocket detected a nitrogen gas leak, prompting the return of the launcher and its Japanese government payload to a nearby assembly building for repairs.

An International Launch Services Proton rocket lifted off at 2137 GMT (4:37 p.m. EST) on Dec. 27 with the Astra 2G communications satellite, a new broadcasting platform owned by SES to beam television and broadband services to Europe, Africa and the Middle East.