Our interview with Steve Jurczyk, NASA’s acting administrator

Construction is complete on the first batch of 81 new satellites to overhaul Iridium’s mobile communications network, and the data relay stations will soon head from their factory near Phoenix to California’s hilly Central Coast for launch Sept. 11 on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket with 60 Starlink internet satellites from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 12:34 p.m. EDT (1634 GMT) Wednesday. The Falcon 9’s reusable first stage successfully landed on SpaceX’s drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

The SMAP observatory to map soil moisture distribution from 426 miles in space and its workhorse booster have been cleared for launch Thursday morning from California.