Q&A with Matt Desch, CEO of Iridium (members only)

Three mysterious payloads widely believed to be signals intelligence satellites for the Chinese military rocketed into orbit on top of a Long March 2C booster Monday from a launch base in southwestern China.

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 6:24 p.m. EST (2324 GMT) Thursday with the U.S. military’s next GPS navigation satellite. The mission was delayed more than a month after a previous countdown was aborted seconds before liftoff.

The mission is set to be the first of a pair of Falcon 9 launches in the span of just a few hours. Liftoff from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station is set for no earlier than 12:00 a.m. EST (0500 UTC) on Nov. 30.