Photos: Falcon takes flight

The 721,000-pound United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket launches on-time at 2:36 p.m. EDT Wednesday into a deck of low-hanging clouds over Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying the GPS 2F-9 navigation satellite.

The first few flights of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew capsule will likely land on expansive desert plains in New Mexico or Utah, according to a former astronaut charged with developing the spacecraft’s operations scheme.

The U.S. Space Force expects to complete design validation on SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket by July, ahead of the launch of the military’s first high-priority national security mission on the heavy-lifter late this year.