Live coverage: Proton fires into space with Eutelsat 9B

SpaceX is preparing for the next launch of a Falcon 9 rocket, set for blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with the EchoStar 23 television broadcast satellite destined to cover Brazil. The rocket’s static fire test, a major milestone in any SpaceX launch campaign, was performed Thursday.

The sharp-eyed science camera on Europe’s Rosetta comet orbiter caught a view of the probe’s fuzzy shadow when controllers guided the spacecraft just a few miles over its subject’s nucleus last month.

A Russian X-ray astronomy satellite with major contributions from German and U.S. scientists and instrument developers arrived Thursday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for a launch in June aboard a Proton rocket.