Live coverage: SpaceX Falcon Heavy launches NASA’s Psyche on mission to a metal asteroid

Using precise autonomous navigation algorithms, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft will descend to the surface of an asteroid next year, aiming to retrieve rock specimens for return to Earth from a gravelly pit flanked by hazardous boulders, scientists said Thursday.

SpaceX’s rideshare program has launched more 1,000 smallsats for more than 130 customers. Liftoff from Vandenberg Space Force Base happened at 11:56 a.m. PDT (2:56 p.m. EDT, 1856 UTC).

The first launch from Cape Canaveral this year placed into orbit an Indonesian communications satellite, a privately-funded Israeli moon lander, and an experimental space surveillance microsatellite for the U.S. Air Force.