Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

The launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Aug. 24 from California delivered Taiwan’s Formosat 5 Earth-imaging satellite to orbit, and the Falcon’s first stage booster returned to landing on a drone ship downrange in the Pacific Ocean.

The launch of a commercial Bulgarian television broadcast satellite from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida is set for Monday after SpaceX ran through a mock countdown Thursday and test-fired a previously-flown Falcon 9 rocket’s Merlin main engines.

SpaceX landed its 460th booster in the midst of the Starlink 12-24 mission. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station occurred at 9:05 a.m. EDT (1305 UTC).