Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 12:17 p.m. EST (9:17 a.m. PST; 1717 GMT) Saturday with an oceanography satellite jointly developed by U.S. and European space and weather agencies. The rocket’s first stage booster returned to a bullseye landing back at Vandenberg.

The U.S. Air Force says the demonstration of an automated safety system on last week’s Falcon 9 rocket launch will slash and costs and hasten turnarounds between missions from military-operated ranges in Florida and California.

SpaceX started the week with the launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida just after sunrise Monday, delivering a classified U.S. government spy satellite to orbit as the booster’s first stage returned to Cape Canaveral for a vertical landing.