CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (REUTERS) - An updated version of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, tailored for eventual crewed missions into orbit, made its debut launch on Friday (May 11) from Florida's Cape Canaveral, carrying a communications satellite for Bangladesh.

The newly minted Block-5 edition of the Falcon 9 - equipped with about 100 upgrades for greater power, safety and reusability than its Block-4 predecessor - lifted off at 4.14pm EDT (4.14am on Saturday, Singapore time) from the Kennedy Space Centre.

Minutes later, the Block-5's main-stage booster flew itself back to Earth to achieve a safe return landing on an unmanned platform vessel floating in the Pacific Ocean.

The recoverable booster for the Block-5 is designed to be reused at least 10 times with minimal refurbishment between flights, allowing more frequent launches at lower cost - a key to the SpaceX business model.

Enhanced rocket reusability also is a core tenet of SpaceX owner and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's broader objectives: making space travel commonplace and ultimately sending humans to Mars.

The flight came a day after the original launch countdown was halted one minute before blastoff time due to a technical problem detected by the rocket's onboard computers.

Friday's second attempt by SpaceX, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, appeared to have gone off without a hitch.