Bangabandhu Satellite-1 Mission successful

The communications satellite rode into space on top of Block 5 Falcon 9 rocket that took off for its debut flight from NASA’s launchpad 39A at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral at 2:14am on Saturday Bangladesh time.

“Bangabandhu-1 satellite has started its journey to orbit successfully as everything went as planned,” State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak told bdnews24.com from the space centre in Florida.

The Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket’s first stage landed on a droneship in the Atlantic 8:45 minutes after the liftoff, according to SpaceX.

A day before, the rocket’s onboard computers triggered an abort with less than a minute left on the countdown clock over a presumed technical glitch.