Photos: Falcon takes flight

Follow the key events of the Falcon 9 rocket’s ascent to orbit with the third set of 10 next-generation satellites for Iridium’s voice and data relay fleet.

Watch a Falcon 9 rocket lift off from Cape Canaveral on December 8, 2010, at 10:43 a.m. EST (1543 GMT) on the COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) Demo Flight 1. It was the first test flight of the Dragon cargo ship.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket blasted off Wednesday carrying NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory, the world’s most distant weather satellite heading for a point a million miles from Earth. Launch from Cape Canaveral occurred at 6:03 p.m. EST (2303 GMT).