Live coverage: Proton blasts off on return-to-flight mission

The Air Force’s robotic X-37B mini space shuttle swooped out of obscurity today after 718 days spent in orbit on a secretive military mission, touching down at the Kennedy Space Center’s orbiter runway on autopilot, the military announced on Twitter.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket at 5:37 a.m. PDT (8:37 a.m. EDT; 1237 GMT) Monday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California with the third set of 10 new-generation satellites for Iridium’s voice and data relay network. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster successfully landed on a platform in the Pacific Ocean a few minutes after liftoff.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket stands poised for flight with the Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane and a batch of CubeSats including the LightSail. The rocket was rolled to Complex 41 on Tuesday in preparation for launch on Wednesday.