Live coverage: Soyuz blasts off on third mission for O3b

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 12:26 p.m. PDT (3:26 p.m. EDT; 1926 GMT) Friday with another batch of 52 Starlink internet satellites. The mission is the first of two SpaceX launches scheduled Friday, with another Falcon 9 poised for liftoff from Florida a little more than four hours later.

The most powerful version of United Launch Alliance’s Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT) today on a three-hour flight to deploy a U.S. Navy mobile communications satellite into orbit. Follow the mission in our live journal.

A new navigation satellite lifted off aboard a Soyuz rocket Sunday and reached an orbital perch 12,000 miles above Earth to test upgraded capabilities aimed at improving positioning services for Russian military and civilian users.