Live coverage: Proton fires into space with Eutelsat 9B

Two communications satellites launched from Cape Canaveral in March aboard Falcon 9 rockets, including a broadcasting craft that lifted off on SpaceX’s first re-flown booster, have entered commercial service, according to their owners.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket ignited its main engines at Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad Thursday night, clearing a major hurdle before liftoff May 31 with the SES 12 communications satellite.

A Soyuz-2.1b rocket lifted off at 0541 GMT (1:41 a.m. EDT) Thursday from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East, carrying a new Russian weather satellite and 32 secondary payloads into polar orbit.