Live coverage: Kennedy Space Center to reopen Friday

A Vega rocket fired into space at 8:52 p.m. EST Monday (0152 GMT Tuesday) from the Guiana Space Center in South America, but the mission deviated from its planned trajectory. The rocket was boosting a Spanish Earth observation satellite and a French research payload into orbit.

The Leo Atlas 8 mission was also the final flight of an Atlas 5 551 configuration. Liftoff from pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened at 12:30:15 a.m. EDT (0430:15 UTC).

Setting new commercial launch and satellite industry records, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket propelled by a first stage booster launched and recovered two times before soared into a clear morning sky over California’s Central Coast on Monday with 64 small satellites, then returned to a pinpoint landing on a vessel parked offshore in the Pacific Ocean, potentially to be flown again.