Live coverage: SpaceX supply ship returns to Earth

The Starlink 9-14 mission launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base is also set to feature the 300th successful SpaceX droneship booster landing. Liftoff from pad 4 East happened at 7:05 p.m. PST (10:05 p.m. EST, 0305 UTC).

On the eve of the launch of his country’s first communications satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket, the chief executive of BulgariaSat credited SpaceX’s cost-cutting ways with making space accessible for small nations and money-conscious companies like his own.

Europe’s new Aeolus winds observatory blasted off at 2120 GMT (5:20 p.m. EDT) Wednesday aboard a solid-fueled Vega rocket from French Guiana, kicking off a three-year mission to chart the motion of Earth’s atmosphere.