Video: SpaceX launches first mission of 2020 (members only)

The United Launch Alliance Delta 4-Heavy rocket, standing 235 feet tall and weighing 1.6 million pounds fully fueled, unleashes 2.1 million pounds of thrust from the three RS-68A main engines at 1:51 p.m. EDT (1751 GMT) today to launch from Cape Canaveral on NROL-37.

Almost exactly three days after taking off a few miles to the north at the Kennedy Space Center on SpaceX’s historic first crew launch, a 15-story-tall Falcon rocket booster returned to Florida’s Space Coast Tuesday aboard a football field-sized drone ship.

SpaceX and the Egyptian satellite operator Nilesat have signed a contract to launch the Nilesat 301 communications craft on a Falcon 9 rocket in 2022, SpaceX confirmed this week.