Photos: Falcon takes flight

Joining the payload with its ride to space, United Launch Alliance crews today placed the next Global Positioning System satellite atop an Atlas 5 rocket for blastoff July 15.

SpaceX’s first launch since August took off from Cape Canaveral at 9:56 a.m. EST (1456 GMT) to carry 60 broadband satellites into orbit for the company’s Starlink network. The Starlink satellites rode together on top of a Falcon 9 rocket with a previously-flown first stage and a reused payload fairing.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Sunday evening, heading due east over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver the Intelsat 35e communications satellite into orbit 32 minutes later.