Photos: Falcon takes flight

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket thundered into the sky over Florida’s Space Coast Sunday night and deployed a sophisticated internet satellite for Viasat into a circular orbit more than 20,000 miles over the equator, delivering for a competitor to SpaceX’s own Starlink broadband network.

The SXM-10 satellite launch comes six months after the SXM-9 satellite was launched from Florida. SpaceX is targeting liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Saturday, June 7 at 12:54 a.m. EDT (0454 UTC).

The launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base came on the heels of leaders from the U.S. Space Force gathering to discuss how to adjust to a rapidly increasing launch cadence for both the Eastern Range and Western Range. Liftoff happened at 1:55 p.m. PST (4:55 p.m. EST, 2155 UTC).