Live coverage: Falcon 9 launches ocean study satellite, barge landing fails

Getting off to a ground-shaking start, NASA’s $1.2 billion Psyche asteroid probe roared into space atop a Falcon Heavy rocket Friday, setting off on a 2.2-billion-mile voyage to a rare, metal-rich asteroid that may hold clues about how the cores of rocky planets like Earth first formed.

On the mission’s third launch attempt, SpaceX sent a Falcon Heavy rocket aloft at 8:26 p.m. EDT Sunday (0026 UTC Monday) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The nearly five-hour mission to a near-geosynchronous orbit carried the first satellite for the ViaSat 3 space-based internet network, along with two smaller rideshare payloads.

SpaceX hasn’t launched a Falcon 9 rocket since the March 2 flight of Starlink 12-20. It’s return to flight mission is set to be the rideshare launch of NASA’s SPHEREx and PUNCH missions on Monday night.