Photos: Atlas 5 rocket aims for International Space Station

Rising atop a column of rocket exhaust lighting up the Kazakh steppe, a Russian Proton booster took off Thursday with a commercial communications satellite for AsiaSat.

SpaceX rolled out the company’s first space-worthy Crew Dragon spacecraft and its Falcon 9 launcher to pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the first time Thursday, beginning a series of fit checks before the commercial spaceship takes off on its first orbital test flight.

The final flight of a discontinued version of Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket added four more spacecraft to Europe’s Galileo navigation constellation Wednesday, giving the multibillion-euro network enough satellites to remain on track for the start of full global service in 2020.