Photos: Falcon takes flight

A SpaceX-owned Dragon cargo craft left the International Space Station on Friday and flew back to Earth for a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean with a dozen mice and more than 3,000 pounds of experiment specimens and space hardware.

The Starlink 6-66 mission comes near the end of a week during which SpaceX launched three Falcon 9 rockets in less than 20 hours and a Starship rocket. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is set for 11:07 a.m. EST (1607 UTC).

The launch added another 13 satellites featuring Direct to Cell capabilities to SpaceX’s growing constellation. Liftoff happened at 5:07 a.m. PDT (8:07 a.m. EDT, 1207 UTC)