Live coverage: Proton fires into space with Eutelsat 9B

A commercial Chinese communications satellite launched Friday aboard a Long March 3B rocket on a mission to broadcast television to consumers across the Asia-Pacific and connect passengers on ships and airplanes with the Internet.

A Russian Proton rocket lifted off at 1017 GMT (6:17 a.m. EDT) Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodorme in Kazakhstan. After a marathon 16-hour-long launch sequence, the Proton and its Breeze M upper stage will deploy the Eutelsat 5 West B video broadcast satellite and a robotic satellite servicing payload aiming to attempt the first-ever docking in geosynchronous orbit.

One job deemed essential by the European Space Agency coronavirus pandemic involves shepherding the BepiColombo spacecraft through a high-speed flyby of planet Earth next month, an immovable event on the $1.8 billion mission’s seven-year journey to Mercury.