Live coverage: SpaceX finally launches Falcon 9 rocket

A heavy-duty crane towering over launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in recent weeks has removed several large sections of a disused structure once needed to install satellites and space station modules into space shuttle cargo bays.

A Russian Proton rocket rolled out to a launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome on Sunday with a commercial communications satellite to broadcast high-definition television channels to millions of homes across Latin America.

NASA has awarded SpaceX a $109 million contract to launch the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe, a NOAA space weather observatory, a robotic scout to map water on the moon, and two other ridealong payloads on a single Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in 2024.