The first flight of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule

The Starlink 6-88 added 29 broadband internet satellites to the constellation of more than 9,300 in low Earth orbit. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 1:48 a.m. EST (0648 UTC).

When SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket takes off with 64 small satellites — a payload cache representing 34 customers in 17 nations — it will be just the first act in a nearly five-hour sequence to deftly deploy each of the spacecraft, which range in size from a Rubik’s cube to a refrigerator.

A communications satellite for Turkmenistan soared into orbit Monday, climbing through gloomy skies over Cape Canaveral aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to give the Central Asian nation its first foothold in space.