Drone’s view of Sunday’s SpaceX rocket landing

The Starlink 15-5 was SpaceX’s 59th Falcon 9 launch of the year. Liftoff from pad 4 East at Vandneberg Space Force Base happened at 6:43 a.m. PDT (9:43 a.m. EDT, 1343 UTC).

Succeeding on a one-shot launch attempt before Hurricane Irma shuts down the Cape Canaveral spaceport, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket thundered into orbit Thursday with the U.S. Air Force’s X-37B spaceplane, a reusable robotic mini-shuttle that could stay aloft for years with clandestine on-board experiments.

Engineers erected a commercial Antares rocket vertical on its launch pad on Virginia’s Eastern Shore Friday, positioning the 13-story booster for liftoff Sunday night with more than 5,000 pounds of supplies and experiments for the International Space Station.