Live coverage: SpaceX launches another batch of Starlink satellites

SpaceX’s final Falcon 9 launch of the year carried a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. government’s spy satellite agency. SpaceX aborted a launch attempt Thursday morning to assess a second stage sensor reading, but the Falcon 9 successfully lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center at 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT) Saturday. The rocket’s stage landed back at Cape Canaveral eight minutes later.

Targeting a pair of satellite launches in June and July, ground teams will resume work at the Guiana Space Center in South America next week after a nearly two-month pause in Arianespace’s launch campaigns due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Starlink 10-26 mission will add another 28 satellites into the constellation of more than 8,000 on orbit. SpaceX executed liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5:01 a.m. EDT (0901 UTC).