Photos: Falcon takes flight

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral on its 15th flight just before sunset Wednesday, putting on a spectacular sky show en route to space with a NOAA satellite to measure the solar wind.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 8:45 p.m. EST Thursday (0145 GMT Friday) from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The commercial launcher, featuring a reused first stage booster flying for the third time, hauled into orbit Indonesia’s Nusantara Satu communications satellite, the Beresheet lunar lander for SpaceIL, and the S5 space surveillance payload for the Air Force Research Laboratory.

The Starlink 11-4 mission was the 111th orbital launch for SpaceX from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base. Liftoff happened at 3:02 p.m. PST (6:02 p.m. EST, 2302 UTC).