Live coverage: 400th Proton rocket takes off with Russian satellite

NASA’s Juno spacecraft barreled toward a Fourth of July rendezvous with Jupiter after a 1.7-billion-mile, five-year trip from planet Earth. The research probe’s main engine ignited for 35 minutes to maneuver Juno into orbit, and engineers received confirmation of the burn’s conclusion on time at 11:53 p.m. EDT Monday (0353 GMT Tuesday).

SpaceX rolled out a Falcon 9 rocket to launch pad 39A early Tuesday for a prelaunch hotfire test before this weekend’s liftoff with a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office, the U.S. government spy satellite agency. The static fire test was completed at 3:02 p.m. (1902 GMT).

Rocket Lab’s second Electron booster lifted off from New Zealand’s North Island on Saturday, U.S. time, and reached orbit after an eight-minute climb over the Pacific Ocean. Liftoff with three commercial CubeSats occurred at 8:43 p.m. EST Saturday (0143 GMT; 2:43 p.m. New Zealand time Sunday).