Photos: Falcon takes flight

SpaceX started the week with the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida just after sunrise Monday, delivering a classified U.S. government spy satellite to orbit as the booster’s first stage returned to Cape Canaveral for a vertical landing.

The uncrewed spacecraft will operate in low Earth orbit for an unspecified amount of time. This is the eighth launch of an X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle since its first flight in 2010.

A Proton rocket lifted off from Kazakhstan on Thursday with a large European-built telecommunications satellite to broadcast television, radio and other services across Russia and sub-Saharan Africa.