Photos: Falcon takes flight

The SpainSat NG 2 satellite will be flown to a geosynchronous transfer orbit. Liftoff happened at 9:30 p.m. EDT (0130 UTC).

SpaceX plans to set up landing pads on abandoned launch sites at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg Air Force Base in a step toward the company’s vision for eventual recovery and reuse of rocket boosters.

Ground crews loaded time-critical experiments, including 20 mice to help scientists study muscle atrophy, into SpaceX’s commercial Dragon cargo capsule Thursday, a day before a launch planned from Cape Canaveral toward the International Space Station.