Live coverage: Japan’s H-2A rocket blasts off on first commercial flight

After a 24-hour delay due to poor weather, an air-launched Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL rocket fired into orbit at 9:59 p.m. EDT Thursday (0159 GMT Friday) after release from a carrier jet at an altitude of 39,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean northeast of Cape Canaveral. The Pegasus rocket carried NASA’s ICON satellite into orbit to collect measurements of the ionosphere.

Sixty more SpaceX-owned Starlink internet satellites rocketed through a moonlit winter sky over Cape Canaveral aboard a Falcon 9 launcher early Thursday, while another Falcon 9 sat on a different launch pad a few miles away to loft another 60 Starlink payloads Friday.

Watch a replay of the launch of an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana carrying the Star One D1 and JCSAT 15 communications satellites.