Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket with 21 Starlink satellites on board will launch from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Station. Liftoff is no earlier than 7:44 p.m. PST (10:44 p.m. EST, 0344 UTC).

A Soyuz spacecraft undocked from the International Space Station on Thursday to bring home NASA flight engineer Jessica Meir, astronaut Andrew Morgan and Russian commander Oleg Skripochka. The Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft departed the station at 9:53 p.m. Thursday (0153 GMT Friday) and landed on the steppes of Kazakhstan at 1:16 a.m. EDT (0516 GMT).

The milestone came less than seven years after launching its first batch of operational Starlink satellites. Liftoff of the Starlink 17-24 mission happened on Monday, March 16, at 10:19:09 p.m. PDT (1:19:09 a.m. EDT / 0519:09 UTC on Tuesday, Mar. 17).