Live coverage: 400th Proton rocket takes off with Russian satellite

SpaceX’s first launch of 2018 blasted off at 8 p.m. EST Sunday (0100 GMT Monday). A Falcon 9 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral with a mysterious U.S. government payload known as Zuma, and the first stage returned to landing on Florida’s Space Coast around eight minutes later.

SpaceX has delayed the next launch of a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center until Sunday. The two-stage launcher will carry with another batch of 60 Starlink satellites into orbit.

Shuttle veteran Scott Kelly first heard about NASA’s plans to send an astronaut to the International Space Station for nearly a full year shortly after he completed his third space flight in 2011, a 159-day stay aboard the orbital lab complex.