One of the company's Falcon 9 rockets lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Tuesday (March 10) at 12:19 a.m. EDT (0419 GMT), carrying the 15,000-pound (6,800-kilogram) EchoStar XXV TV satellite skyward.
The Falcon 9's first stage, a vehicle known as Booster 1085, came back to Earth nearly nine minutes later as planned, touching down in the Atlantic Ocean on the SpaceX droneship "A Shortfall of Gravitas. " It was the 14th launch and landing for this particular booster, according to a company mission description.
The Falcon 9's upper stage, meanwhile, continued carrying EchoStar XXV to distant geosynchronous transfer orbit, where the satellite was deployed on schedule 35 minutes after liftoff.
