Photos: Falcon takes flight

SpaceX launched a series of 81 payloads to a Sun-synchronous Earth orbit over a roughly 2.5-hour-long deployment period. Liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base happened at 12:12 a.m. PDT (0312 EDT / 0712 UTC).

The Starlink 6-66 mission comes near the end of a week during which SpaceX launched three Falcon 9 rockets in less than 20 hours and a Starship rocket. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is set for 11:07 a.m. EST (1607 UTC).

SpaceX will perform a multi-hour experiment on the second stage of a Falcon 9 rocket after the launcher deploys a Dragon supply ship on the way to the International Space Station Thursday, gathering thermal data and other information to verify the vehicle’s ability to perform long-duration missions and inject payloads into demanding, high-energy orbits.