Video: Weather causes Atlas 5 countdown hold

It was 1986 and the U.S. Air Force was on the cusp of something unprecedented in human spaceflight — launching a space shuttle crew from California and paving the way for people to fly true polar missions.

A rocket engine with a long pedigree marked a big milestone on Monday. It’s 60 years since the hydrogen-fueled RL10 engine debuted onboard a Centaur upper stage launched from Cape Canaveral on Nov. 27, 1963.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fired into space from Florida’s Atlantic coastline Monday with a clandestine payload for a U.S. government spy agency, then returned to Cape Canaveral for a pinpoint landing.