Videos: Replays from successful Atlas 5 launch of TDRS-M

An extended mission for the Falcon 9 rocket’s second stage after launch Thursday with a space station cargo ship helped demonstrate SpaceX’s ability to perform long-duration flight sequences to inject U.S. military payloads directly into high-altitude geosynchronous orbit.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT) today to send NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on a seven-year, 4.4-billion-mile mission to rendezvous with Asteroid Bennu and bring a sample of the primordial object back to Earth. Follow the mission in our live journal.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Space Launch Complex 4-East at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 12:17 p.m. EST (9:17 a.m. PST; 1717 GMT) Saturday with an oceanography satellite jointly developed by U.S. and European space and weather agencies. The rocket’s first stage booster returned to a bullseye landing back at Vandenberg.