Live coverage: Delta 2 launches

A previously-flown SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster conducted a test-firing Monday at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, ahead of a planned launch Oct. 7 with an Airbus-built communications satellite made for SES and EchoStar.

Four satellites tucked inside the tip of a Soyuz rocket lifted off Thursday, heading for a 5,000-mile-high orbit to expand the reach of O3b’s broadband communications network. Liftoff from the European-run spaceport in French Guiana occurred at 1:37 p.m. EST (1837 GMT).

United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4-Heavy rocket lifted off at 11:10 a.m. PST (2:10 p.m. EST; 1910 GMT) Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, after a month-long delay to troubleshoot a hydrogen leak in one of its boosters. The heavy-lifter was on a mission to send a U.S. government spy satellite into orbit.