March 1, 2013 - A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40 at 10:10 a.m. EDT on the second operational commercial cargo flight to the International Space Station. The rocket roared skyward and quickly disappeared into the thick cloud cover.

Atop Falcon is the Dragon spacecraft with 1,869 pounds of crew supplies, experiments and spare parts. The capsule will return to Earth on March 25th with approximately 2,600 pounds of equipment from the space station.

Since the retirement of the space shuttle, the Dragon spacecraft is the only space station servicing vehicle capable of both delivering and returning large quantities of cargo. SpaceX completed a successful test flight to the complex in May 2012, followed in October by the first operational resupply mission.

There will be a delay of at least one day in docking with the ISS due to an issue with Dragon's thruster pods after it reached orbit.

Launch photos taken from NASA Causeway on Kennedy Space Center; a distance of about 4 miles.