Lighting up the night sky, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket making the program's 50th flight thundered away from Cape Canaveral early Tuesday, shattering the overnight calm with a crackling roar as it boosted a Spanish communications satellite toward orbit in the California rocket builder's fifth flight so far this year. With the Hispasat launch behind them, SpaceX engineers will press ahead with a busy Spring schedule, launching another Falcon 9 carrying 10 Iridium NEXT satellites from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., on March 29, followed four days later by launch of a Dragon cargo ship from Cape Canaveral to deliver supplies and equipment to the International Space Station. A single Merlin engine on the Falcon 9’s upper stage ignited to head into orbit, and the rocket shed its nose cone around three-and-a-half minutes into the mission, once the fairing structure was no longer needed to protect the Hispasat 30W-6 satellite.
SpaceX successfully launches Spanish communications satellite Hispasat 30W-6 into orbit on a Falcon 9 Full Thrust rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.