Spectators watch the final fiery moments of the Starship test flight

A startup company named i-Space became the first Chinese private firm to achieve orbit Thursday with a successful launch of a light-class Hyperbola 1 booster.

The Starlink 10-34 mission was SpaceX’s 20th Falcon 9 launch of the year so far. Liftoff from pad 40 occurred at 8:41:40 p.m. EST (0141:40).

Orbital ATK’s bid to join the U.S. military’s roster of rockets to haul the most critical national security satellites into orbit faces stiff competition from entrenched launch providers and billionaire entrepreneurs, but the company is confident its Next Generation Launch system will win one of three funding agreements the Air Force is expected to award this summer.