Photos: Atlas 5 rocket soars from West Coast

Two Chinese Beidou navigation satellites successfully launched Monday on top of a Long March 3B rocket, completing the core of China’s independent positioning and timing network ahead of the start of global service next year.

A Chinese oceanography satellite designed to measure wave height and winds launched Monday aboard a Long March 4B rocket equipped with grid fins to help control the first stage’s descent back to Earth, an improvement aimed at keeping falling boosters away from Chinese villages.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket took off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 8:25 a.m. EDT (1225 GMT) with 60 more Starlink internet satellites. SpaceX successfully recovered the first stage booster on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.