Posted: Sun, Aug 27, 2017, 10:17 AM ET (1417 GMT)
A SpaceX Falcon 9 successfully launched a small Taiwanese remote-sensing satellite Thursday. The Falcon 9 lifted off on schedule at 2:51 pm EDT (1851 GMT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California and placed the Formosat-5 satellite into a sun-synchronous orbit 11 minutes later. The Falcon 9 first stage landed on a SpaceX droneship at sea, the 15th time SpaceX has successfully landed the first stage. Formosat-5, developed by Taiwan's space agency, was originally intended to launch on a Falcon 1 under a contract signed in 2010, but moved to the larger Falcon 9 when SpaceX retired the Falcon 1. The launch previously planned to include a set of secondary payloads, but they were removed from the mission earlier this year because of delays in SpaceX's launch schedule.

Related Links:

•  SpaceNews article
•  CBS News article
•  Spaceflight Now article
•  NASASpaceFlight.com article
•  AP article