Watch the Falcon 9 light its engines for a static test fire (members only)

The launch came as SpaceX is also preparing to launch a Cygnus spacecraft to the International Space Station over the weekend. Liftoff of the Starlink 10-6 mission happened at 1:01 a.m. EDT (0501 UTC).

An Ariane 5 rocket will fire into the sky from French Guiana just after sunset Wednesday and deliver nearly 12 tons of payload to an orbit reaching 22,000 miles up less than a half-hour later.

SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 rocket ignited its Merlin main engines for several seconds Thursday at Kennedy Space Center’s pad 39A ahead of a planned launch next week.