Launching into a clear autumn sky at sunset, a Falcon 9 rocket took off Wednesday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and delivered the SES 11/EchoStar 105 communications satellite to orbit.
These photos show the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) launcher’s climb away from pad 39A at the Florida spaceport. Liftoff occurred at 6:53 p.m. EDT (2253 GMT) Wednesday, powered by a previously-flown first stage booster with nine Merlin 1D main engines.
The engines produced about 1.7 million pounds of thrust to push the rocket skyward.
Read our full story for details on the mission.
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