Falcon 9 abort seen from press site

The Starlink 17-8 mission was just the seventh new booster for the company out of more than 100 launches this year. SpaceX achieved liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base at 8:51 p.m. PDT (11:51 p.m. EDT / 0351 UTC).

Boeing and SpaceX hope to launch commercial crew ferry ships on long-awaited test flights later this year, but both companies face major challenges getting the spacecraft certified before late 2019 when seats aboard Russian Soyuz spacecraft will no longer be easily available for NASA space station crews, officials told lawmakers Wednesday.

SpaceX teams at Cape Canaveral are readying for the company’s 10th Falcon 9 rocket launch of the year Wednesday, another flight devoted to delivering satellites to orbit for the Starlink internet network.