Cape Canaveral - A Space Exploration Technologies Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Sunday to put a commercial communications satellite into orbit.
The 68m tall rocket lifted off from its seaside launch pad early on Sunday morning, dashing through partly cloudy 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, or AsiaSat.
The first satellite, AsiaSat 8, was successfully delivered into an orbit about 35 700km above Earth on 5 August.
Both satellites were built by Space Systems/Loral, a Palo Alto, California-based subsidiary of Canada's MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates.
"With the two satellites coming out of the factory approximately the same time we were able to book back-to-back missions," said AsiaSat chief executive William Wade.
The two launches cost AsiaSat about $110m, Wade said.
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 re-usable landing vehicle during a test flight on 22 August.