Photos: Falcon takes flight

Engineers from SpaceX, Boeing and Inmarsat spent the last few weeks preparing a Falcon 9 rocket and the Inmarsat 5 F4 communications satellite for liftoff from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The Starlink 10-11 mission features the first launch of a booster on its 30th flight. SpaceX is targeting liftoff of its Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at 4:12 a.m. EDT (0812 UTC).

The first 10 satellites for Iridium’s next-generation mobile voice and data relay network have been fueled, joined with their deployment module and encapsulated inside the clamshell-like nose cone of a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster for launch as soon as next week from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.