SpaceX's EchoStar mission takes flight from historical NASA launch pad! - Watch video

Image courtesy: SpaceX/YouTube

New Delhi: Two days after SpaceX delayed the launch of its commercial communications satellite citing strong winds, the private space company's Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center early on Thursday morning.

About 2:35 am EDT, SpaceX tweeted that it had confirmed successful deployment of the EchoStar 23 satellite to a geosynchronous transfer orbit.

The satellite will be place in orbit more that 35,000 kilometers above the Earth and provide telecommunications service to Brazil, SpaceX said.

However, SpaceX said it will not attempt to land Falcon 9's first stage after launch "due to mission requirements."

The mission took off from NASA's historic launchpad 39A, the origin of the pioneering US spaceflights that took astronauts to the Moon in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as the space shuttle missions that ran from 1981 to 2011.

Headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, and conducting business around the globe, EchoStar Corporation is global provider of satellite communication solutions.

SpaceX, founded and led by billionaire Elon Musk, is emerging as leader of the modern commercial space industry after becoming the first to send a private cargo carrier to the International Space Station in 2010.

The California-based company has endured two costly disasters in the past two years – a launchpad blast that destroyed a rocket and its satellite payload in September, and a June 2015 explosion after liftoff that obliterated a Dragon cargo ship packed with provisions bound for the space station.

The EchoStar XXIII mission is SpaceX's second launch from LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center.

Check out the video of the launch below:

(Video courtesy: SpaceX)

(With PTI inputs)