ROUGH CUT (NO REPORTER NARRATION)
A Space Exploration Technologies Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Sunday (September 7) to put a commercial communications satellite into orbit.
The 224-foot (68-meter) tall rocket lifted off from its seaside launch pad at 0100EDT/0500 GMT, dashing through partly cloudy, nighttime skies as it headed toward space.
Tucked inside the rocket's nosecone was the second of two satellites owned by Hong Kong-based Asia Satellite Telecommunications Holdings Ltd, or AsiaSat.
Both satellites were built by Space Systems/Loral, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based subsidiary of Canada's MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.
Privately owned SpaceX, as the company is known, planned to launch the second satellite, AsiaSat 6, two weeks ago, but delayed the flight to recheck the rocket's systems following an unrelated accident that claimed the company's prototype Falcon 9R reusable lander during a test fl
