Photos: Falcon takes flight

Keeping with its mantra of fly, fix and fly again, SpaceX says it has resolved a valve problem that kept one of its Falcon 9 boosters from successfully touching down on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean in April, ahead of another landing attempt after a launch from Cape Canaveral set for Sunday.

The Starlink 11-22 mission was SpaceX’s 50th Starlink launch of the year. Liftoff from pad 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base occurred at 4:40 p.m. PDT (7:40 p.m. EDT, 2340 UTC).

NASA’s Office of Inspector General said that while NASA is working to “mitigate and prevent hazards” associated with lunar landers being built by SpaceX and Blue Origin, “there are currently gaps in the agency’s approach, including in its testing posture and crew survival analyses,” including what might happen after a catastrophic but non-fatal event.