11:45 PM PDT · June 24, 2019 SpaceX has succeeded in launching its third mission with the Falcon Heavy high-capacity rocket it first launched successfully last year. The rocket’s STP-2 mission took off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida towards the end of a four-hour launch window that opened at 11:30 PM EDT on Monday, with liftoff taking place at 2:30 AM EDT on Tuesday after the launch was pushed back so that the ground crew could complete “additional ground system checkouts.” The launch was a first for SpaceX in a number of different ways – it’s the first night launch for Falcon Heavy, which treated observers to a unique light show. It’s also the first time SpaceX has launched the Falcon Heavy with flight-prove boosters, and it used two: The boosters on either side of Falcon Heavy’s central rocket were used on the Arabsat-6A mission that launched on April 11. Finally, it’s the first time that Falcon Heavy has carried a payload for crucial SpaceX customers – including the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Defense, NASA and more. To accomplish its mission, it carried out several maneuvers and three burns to deploy its payload of 24 different spacecraft into their three separate target orbits. This is the most complex mission and deployment sequence yet for a SpaceX launch and it appears to have gone off as intended.