Watch the Falcon Heavy fire up its engines

A commercial module mounted outside the International Space Station last year will remain attached to the orbiting research complex for at least three more years, carrying out additional tests for future space habitats and serving as a storage closet for the lab’s crew.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 11:02 p.m. PDT Tuesday (2:02 a.m. EDT; 0602 UTC Wednesday) with another batch of 52 Starlink internet satellites.

The mission saw the Block 2 version of the upper stage get further than the previous two flights, but the rocket succumbed to leaks that caused a loss of attitude control.