Live coverage: SpaceX supply ship returns to Earth

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on Thursday urged space enthusiasts not to travel to the Kennedy Space Center next month to view the first launch of astronauts from the Florida spaceport since 2011, and asked people to instead watch the launch on television or online.

The Starlink 17-9 mission added another 24 broadband satellites to its low Earth orbit constellation of more than 8,300. Liftoff from pad 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base happened at 11:06 a.m. PDT (2:06 p.m. EDT / 1806 UTC).

In the last few months, teams of SpaceX engineers working on the flat coastal plains of South Texas and in a nondescript industrial yard on Florida’s Space Coast have been building two futuristic-looking stainless steel rockets — or Starships — prototypes for a reusable vehicle the company claims could one day ferry people to Mars.