Live coverage: SpaceX launches first upgraded Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket

The Starlink 10-34 mission was SpaceX’s 80th Falcon 9 launch of the year. Liftoff from pad 40 occurred at 12:26 a.m. EDT (0426 UTC).

A little more than a year after the Falcon Heavy rocket’s first test flight, SpaceX teams on Florida’s Space Coast are readying the world’s most powerful operational launcher for its second mission Thursday with a commercial communications satellite.

An Orbital ATK Pegasus XL rocket carrying eight hurricane research satellites for NASA fired into orbit Thursday at 8:37 a.m. EST (1337 GMT) off the east coast of Florida.