Live coverage: Proton soars into space with Inmarsat satellite

Russia’s new Angara 5 rocket, the biggest Russian launcher since the end of the Cold War, made a pre-dawn blastoff from the wintry Plesetsk Cosmodrome on Tuesday on a successful first flight. See video and photos of the fiery liftoff from the snowy launch pad.

Riding nearly a million pounds of thrust, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian crewmates Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner rocketed into orbit April 9 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome en route to the International Space Station.

Michel Denis, flight director for Europe’s ExoMars mission, spoke with Spaceflight Now on March 22 about the status of the spacecraft a week after its blastoff from Kazakhstan en route to the red planet.