Photos: Falcon takes flight

NASA announced Monday that the launch of the first operational crew rotation mission to the International Space Station on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft is set for the predawn hours of Halloween, eight days later than previously planned.

A Falcon 9 rocket launched Sunday evening on a record-breaking 62nd orbital launch of the year for SpaceX. The previous record was set in 2022 with 61 launches by the company. Liftoff from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, with 21 Starlink satellites aboard, occurred at 10:47 p.m. EDT (0247 UTC).

Four days before its scheduled blastoff on a resupply run to the International Space Station, a Falcon 9 rocket ran through a countdown rehearsal and engine test Sunday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.