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

A Russian Soyuz rocket lifted off Friday night from a tropical spaceport in French Guiana with a commercial communications satellite setting off on a dual mission to demonstrate new space technologies and bridge the Atlantic with data, video and voice relays. Launch occurred at 0103:34 GMT Saturday (8:03:34 p.m. EST Friday).

A three-man crew from Russia, the United States and Italy climbed inside a Soyuz spacecraft and rocketed into orbit Saturday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on course for the International Space Station.

Four more satellites for SES Networks’ O3b broadband fleet launched Thursday aboard a Soyuz rocket. Liftoff of the Soyuz launcher from the Guiana Space Center in South America occurred at 1703 GMT (1:03 p.m. EDT).