A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Wednesday carrying into orbit a Luxembourg-made communications satellite designed in part to expand NATO's surveillance reach and its capability to deter cyber attacks on alliance members. It marked the second rocket launch this year for billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk and his privately owned Space Exploration Technologies. Wednesday's payload was a communications satellite built for LuxGovSat S.A., a public-private joint venture between the Luxembourg government and Luxembourg-based telecommunications company SES, in part to fulfil that nation's growing defence obligations to NATO. Thirty-four minutes after liftoff, the satellite was successfully released into a highly elliptical "parking" orbit, according to SpaceX. The same Falcon 9 booster was used last year in a mission to launch a top-secret payload into space for the US government.

Source: dna February 01, 2018 00:45 UTC