SpaceX Falcon 9 boosts Spanish communications satellite into space
SpaceX Falcon 9 boosts Spanish communications satellite into space 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. Running more than a week late because of testing and scheduling issues, the Falcon 9's nine Merlin 1D engines ignited and throttled up to liftoff thrust at 12:33 a.m. EST, pushing the booster away from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop a brilliant plume of fire visible for miles around. With the engines generating 1.7 million pounds of thrust, the slender 229-foot-tall rocket initially climbed straight up, then arced over to the east and shot away over the Atlantic Ocean, rapidly fading from view as it accelerated toward space. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk took to Tw
