Video replay: Parker Solar Probe launches atop Delta 4-Heavy

An Earth observation satellite designed to collect three-dimensional mapping imagery rode a Long March 4B rocket into orbit Sunday with three smaller spacecraft, including one to test an innovative French-made iodine thruster, and another satellite built for Sudan.

NASA has awarded SpaceX a $109 million contract to launch the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, a NOAA space weather observatory, a robotic scout to map water on the moon, and two other ridealong payloads on a single Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in 2024.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for liftoff from Cape Canaveral on Thursday, heading due east over the Atlantic Ocean to deliver the Turkish Turksat 5A communications satellite into orbit around 33 minutes later.