Q&A with Mike Laidley, vice president of Orbital ATK’s Next Generation Launch program (members only)

The launch of a United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral was aborted three seconds before a planned liftoff at 3:28 a.m. EDT (0728 GMT). The rocket was set to loft a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency.

SpaceX’s first launch since August took off from Cape Canaveral at 9:56 a.m. EST (1456 GMT) to carry 60 broadband satellites into orbit for the company’s Starlink network. The Starlink satellites rode together on top of a Falcon 9 rocket with a previously-flown first stage and a reused payload fairing.

Two satellites destined to join China’s Beidou network successfully launched Thursday aboard a Long March 3B rocket, the first two of up to 18 new Chinese navigation craft scheduled for deployment this year.