Drone’s view of Sunday’s SpaceX rocket landing

On the mission’s third launch attempt, SpaceX sent a Falcon Heavy rocket aloft at 8:26 p.m. EDT Sunday (0026 UTC Monday) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The nearly five-hour mission to a near-geosynchronous orbit carried the first satellite for the ViaSat 3 space-based internet network, along with two smaller rideshare payloads.

Astronauts will not fly to the International Space Station on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship until at least May 2018, NASA said this week, missing a previous target launch date at the end of next year.

The change will allow the U.S. Space Force to expedite the process of building out its GPS constellation in medium Earth orbit. The launch date for the next satellite, GPS III Space Vehicle 09, could be within weeks.