Q&A with Claire Leon, director of launch enterprise directorate at SMC

The U.S. military’s experimental spaceplane will soon soar to orbit using a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time, a Pentagon news release announced. The X-37B spacecraft will launch from the Kennedy Space Center no earlier than December 7.

SpaceX called off a planned launch attempt Saturday to deploy the next batch of satellites for the Starlink broadband network. Two commercial Earth-observing satellites for BlackSky are also awaiting a ride into orbit on the Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station was the first to the 10th shell of the Starlink constellation. Liftoff from pad 40 happened at 9:56 p.m. EDT (0156 UTC).