Photos: Falcon takes flight

SpaceX completed the first of two planned Starlink missions from Florida this week. The first launch lifted off from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral on Monday at 2:14 p.m. EDT (1814 UTC).

Three of Planet’s commercial SkySat Earth-imaging spacecraft will ride to space on top of a stack of SpaceX Starlink satellites next month aboard a Falcon 9 rocket, and three more will hitch a ride on another SpaceX mission later this summer.

NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexandr Gorbunov arrived in Florida on Saturday afternoon ahead of their final launch preparations. A flight readiness review occurred on Monday, Sept. 23.