Live coverage: SpaceX launches its fifth Falcon 9 flight of the year

Construction is complete on the first batch of 81 new satellites to overhaul Iridium’s mobile communications network, and the data relay stations will soon head from their factory near Phoenix to California’s hilly Central Coast for launch Sept. 11 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

The chief technology officer of SES, operator of the world’s largest commercial geostationary satellite fleet, spoke with reporters on the eve of the launch of the company’s SES 9 communications craft aboard a Falcon 9 rocket.

Engineers worked inside a climate-controlled clean room for two months to ready NOAA’s new space weather observatory for launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.