Live coverage: Falcon 9 disintegrates after launch

An International Launch Services Proton rocket launched at 7:16 p.m. EST Sunday (0016 GMT Monday) with the Yamal 401 communications satellite for Gazprom Space Systems. The rocket’s Breeze M upper stage will deploy the spacecraft into geostationary orbit about nine hours after liftoff.

SpaceX fired three Raptor engines on a prototype of the company’s Starship vehicle Tuesday, accomplishing another milestone on the road toward testing of the methane-fueled rocket at higher altitudes.

Opening a new era in American spaceflight, a Falcon 9 rocket streaked into space early Saturday, boosting the company’s first Crew Dragon spacecraft into orbit on an unpiloted test flight, the first launch of a commercially developed capsule intended to carry astronauts to and from the International Space Station.