Photos: Delta 4 lights up the sky for night owl launch

Almost exactly three days after taking off a few miles to the north at the Kennedy Space Center on SpaceX’s historic first crew launch, a 15-story-tall Falcon rocket booster returned to Florida’s Space Coast Tuesday aboard a football field-sized drone ship.

SpaceX’s second Falcon 9 flight of the year lifted off Jan. 31 from Cape Canaveral with GovSat 1, a U.S.-built satellite funded by SES and the government of Luxembourg to provide secure communications for military and civil defense authorities.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is standing more than 20 stories tall on pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, ready for blastoff with the Turksat 5A communications satellite.