Video: Falcon 9 launch with natural sound (members only)

Under a brilliant moon, a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket flashed to life and vaulted away from Cape Canaveral late Sunday, boosting the European Space Agency’s $1.5 billion Solar Orbiter probe out of Earth’s gravitational grip toward a multi-year voyage around the sun that will give scientists their first glimpse of the star’s poles.

Working under physical distancing requirements and other precautions against the coronavirus pandemic, range teams at Cape Canaveral are preparing for launches of Atlas 5 and Falcon 9 rockets from neighboring pads this weekend.

SpaceX aims to launch its next mission, the 50th flight of a Falcon 9 rocket, just after midnight Tuesday from Cape Canaveral with a commercial communications satellite for Hispasat.