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

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasts off Sunday with a dual-satellite payload destined for geosynchronous orbits 22,300 miles above the Earth.

A new weather observatory that will track storms across the globe as it orbits from pole to pole has been trucked to its launch site in California for a long-awaited ascent into space this November.

SpaceX disclosed neither the payload nor the customer for this mission but hours after the launch Israel Aerospace Industries said it the Falcon 9 carried its Dror 1 communications satellite. Liftoff occurred at 1:04 a.m. EDT (0504 UTC).