Live coverage: SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 moved to launch pad for hotfire test

A small satellite assembled in Britain has been released from the International Space Station, commencing a standalone mission to test technology and techniques that could be used to capture and de-orbit space junk in low Earth orbit.

The Falcon 9 rocket flew in a south-easterly trajectory once its lifts off from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base. The mission launched at 6:15 p.m. PDT (9:15 p.m. EDT, 0115 UTC).

The next batch of 36 OneWeb internet satellites lifted off at 6:14 p.m. EDT (2214 GMT) from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East. The Florida-built broadband satellites rode into orbit on a Russian Soyuz rocket procured under a contract with Arianespace.