— The 20 most memorable SpaceX missions from its 1st 20 years in photos "The goal of the Pathfinder series is to demonstrate affordable bandwidth acquisition by gaining long-term access to transponder assets from commercial satellite providers," Space Force officials wrote in an emailed statement. "Pathfinder 2 will improve the diversity, flexibility and resiliency of the U.S. Space Force's satellite communication architecture and provide increased capability to the warfighter," they added. "This mission utilizes existing commercial technologies to demonstrate innovative, affordable and resilient wideband alternative satellite communications." Monday's launch had been targeted for Sunday (Feb. 5), but SpaceX called that attempt off due to bad weather. The liftoff was SpaceX's ninth already of 2023, keeping the company on pace to break its single-year launch record of 61, set in 2022. Editor's note: This story was updated at 3 p.m. ET on Feb. 5 with the new launch target time of 7:32 p.m. EST and the updated weather forecast, then again at 6:20 p.m. ET with news of the delay to Feb. 6. It was updated again at 5:10 p.m. ET on Feb. 6 with the new launch time of 8:32 p.m. EST, then again at 9:15 p.m. EST with news of successful launch, rocket landing and satellite deployment, then again at 9:30 p.m. EST with news of the U.S. Space Force payload flying on Amazonas Nexus. Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook. Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.