Video: SpaceX Dragon departs space station

The Starlink 15-1 mission mission launched to a 70 degree inclination, which was previously used for Starlink missions in Group 2 and Starshield missions for the NRO. Liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base happened at 5:38 p.m. PST (8:38 p.m. EST, 0138 UTC).

NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) will be the primary payload on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launching no earlier than Sep. 23. The vehicle is joined by the Carruthers Geocorona Observatory and NOAA’s Space Weather Follow-On – Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) observatory.

Astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken undocked from the International Space Station Saturday aboard a Crew Dragon capsule, heading for a parachute-assisted splashdown Sunday in the Gulf of Mexico to wrap up a 64-day test flight of SpaceX’s commercial human-rated spaceship.