Photos: California’s predawn liftoff of Atlas 5 rocket

A high-power broadband communications satellite designed to provide Internet access to airliner passengers, cruise ships, fishing vessels, and other mobile users successfully launched Thursday aboard a Chinese Long March 3B rocket.

A technology demonstration microsatellite for Astro Digital rode a Rocket Lab Electron launcher into orbit Wednesday (U.S. time) from New Zealand, setting the stage for the debut of new systems on the next Electron flight as engineers move closer to retrieving and reusing the rocket’s first stage.

OneWeb’s next 36 internet satellites stacked on top of a Soyuz rocket lifted at 10:47 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0247 GMT Thursday) from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East.