Live coverage: Space station crew back on Earth

A total of 11 spacecraft will be deployed beginning about 1.5 hours after liftoff. SpaceX is aiming to launch the mission from pad 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base on July 23 at 11:13 a.m. PDT (2:13 p.m. EDT, 1813 UTC).

China led the world with 34 orbital launch attempts in 2019 — including two failures — followed by 22 flights from Russian-operated launch pads and 21 satellite delivery missions originating from U.S. spaceports, all of which were successful.

A Russian military spacecraft designed to map variations in Earth’s gravity field, rotation and tectonic movement reached orbit Sunday after a launch aboard a modified Soviet-era missile that spawned an uproar from Canadian environmentalists over where the rocket would drop a potentially toxic booster stage.