SpaceX successfully launched a Spanish communications satellite early today (March 6) on the landmark 50th flight of the company's workhorse Falcon 9 rocket.

The two-stage Falcon 9 lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 12:33 a.m. EST (0533 GMT) this morning, successfully delivering the bus sized Hispasat 30W-6 satellite to Earth orbit about 30 minutes later.

The first Falcon 9 rocket launched in June 2010, with two failures occuring over the rocket's nearly 8 years in operation. Those two failures occurred in June 2015, when a Falcon 9 broke apart during the launch of a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule on a resupply mission to the International Space Station for NASA; and in September 2016, when a rocket exploded on the launchpad during a routine preflight test.