Watch the Falcon 9 launch from pad 39A

The mission was scheduled to launch less than an hour before a Starlink flight from Vandenberg Space Force Base. Liftoff happened at 3:43 a.m. EDT (0743 UTC).

Northrop Grumman’s Antares rocket will deliver a Cygnus supply ship into orbit Wednesday to begin a day-and-a-half pursuit of the International Space Station.

SpaceX’s plan to send a Dragon capsule to Mars in 2018 will be the first in a sequence of unmanned commercial missions to the rust-colored world before the first voyage with humans as soon as 2024, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said Wednesday.