SpaceX early Monday completed the second in a pair of successful summer launches for Canadian satellite operator Telesat, the latest example of the company returning commercial launches to Florida.

A new Falcon 9 rocket roared from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 40 at 12:45 a.m., after more than an hour's delay because of rain and lightning.

A trail of fire from nine Merlin main engines cut through clouds and darkness on an eastward arc over the Atlantic Ocean, as the rumble from 1.7 million pounds of thrust rippled across the Space Coast, awakening some residents.

Thirty-two minutes later, the more than 15,000-pound Telstar 18 Vantage satellite was safely in orbit, on the heels of Telstar 19 Vantage, which launched July 22 on another Falcon 9.

Less than nine minutes after the liftoff, the rocket’s first stage landed on the deck of SpaceX’s “Of Course I Still Love You” drone ship floating 400 miles offshore — the 29th successful landing by a Falcon booster.

The stage will return to Port Canaveral for inspections and likely be available for a second launch. SpaceX believes its recently upgraded Falcon 9 should be able to fly 10 or more times with minimal maintenance, helping to cut launch costs.

Telesat was once a regular presence at the Cape, launching satellites on Delta rockets and on NASA’s space shuttle in the 1970s and 80s.

But like most commercial satellite firms, the company by the 90s had shifted to lower-cost Russian and European rockets, while American launchers increasingly catered to the U.S. government's more expensive national security and science missions.

A commercial launch from the Cape became a rarity by the time Boeing and Lockheed Martin merged their Delta and Atlas fleets under the United Launch Alliance banner in 2006.

But Telesat said it welcomed the opportunity to return to Florida, where several hundred employees and customer guests visited during the two missions.

Given the option, “our customers would rather come to the Cape than go to Kazakhstan, for example,” said Tom Eaton, Telesat’s vice president of international sales.

[Why all the late-night launches? Get ready for another]

On Monday, ULA announced it had won a commercial launch of a Viasat communications satellite, to be flown by an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral between 2020 and 2022.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 sent Telstar 18 Vantage on its way to an orbit 22,300 miles over the equator, where it will provide broadband services to the Asia-Pacific region, replacing an older spacecraft.

Built by California-based SSL, the satellite is the third “high-throughput” satellite providing faster data speeds in Telesat’s fleet of now 17 spacecraft flying in high orbits.

Eaton said the satellite's services would, for example, help link thousands of remote islands in Indonesia, supporting media, schools, first responders and hospitals.

“That capacity is ideally suited for a country like Indonesia to connect its remote communities and bring them together,” he said.

While expanding its capacity in what is known as geostationary orbit, Telesat is one of several companies — also including SpaceX — proposing to deploy a mega-constellation of small satellites in low Earth orbit, or LEO, to provide global broadband Internet.

The initial concept calls for a constellation of 117 linked satellites potentially starting service in 2022. SpaceX’s constellation, in contrast, would include more than 4,000 spacecraft.

"We’re going to get it right before we rush it to market," said Eaton. "We do believe that the direction that we’re taking with the LEO constellation does give it benefits over the others."

Monday's launch was SpaceX’s 16th in 2018 — the 10th of those flying a commercial mission — and the 60th successful Falcon 9 launch overall. SpaceX is now just two shy of last year’s launch total with more than three months remaining in the calendar year.

The Eastern Range’s next scheduled mission isn’t until Oct. 6, when Northrop Grumman’s air-launched Pegasus XL rocket aims to take flight with NASA's Ionospheric Connection Explorer science mission, or ICON.

Before that, NASA’s Launch Services Program and United Launch Alliance are preparing for a mission from California this Saturday, Sept. 15, of ICESat-2, an Earth climate mission, on the final Delta II rocket.

Contact Dean at 321-917-4534 or jdean@floridatoday.com. And follow on Twitter at @flatoday_jdean and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SpaceTeamGo.

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