Video: Falcon 9 fires engines at pad 39A ahead of Es’hail 2 launch (members only)

Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus XL rocket will take about 11 minutes to place NASA’s Ionospheric Connection Explorer, or ICON, satellite into a roughly 357-mile-high (575-kilometer) orbit after an airborne launch off Florida’s east coast.

A United Launch Delta 4 rocket lifted off Friday from the SLC-6 launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, powering into orbit from a historic seaside complex originally developed for crewed missions.

SpaceX’s billionaire founder and chief executive Elon Musk spoke with reporters just after successfully landing a Falcon 9 booster for the first time.