Q&A with Martin Halliwell, chief technology officer at SES

Launching into a clear autumn sky at sunset, a Falcon 9 rocket took off Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and delivered the SES 11/EchoStar 105 communications satellite to orbit.

The mission will focus on proving the reusability of the rocket and not on additional flight objectives, like operating the payload bay door or reigniting the vacuum engines on the Ship upper stage. The June 5 launch window opens at 7 a.m. CDT (8 a.m. EDT (1200 UTC).

Launch companies and U.S. Space Force range officials at Cape Canaveral are reassessing long-standing weather rules, looking at beefing up rocket defenses against lightning, and considering strategies to prepare for two different launch windows on a given day to guard against weather delays, something SpaceX may demonstrate with a Falcon 9 launch early Thursday.