Take a look back at the fiery blastoff of a Russian Proton rocket Monday with the ExoMars 2016 mission to examine the red planet’s atmosphere and test new European entry, descent and landing technologies.
The 191-foot-tall (58-meter) rocket took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 0931:42 GMT (5:31:42 a.m. EDT) Monday with the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli lander.
Nearly 11 hours later, the rocket’s Breeze M upper stage deployed the ExoMars orbiter on a trajectory toward Mars after a series of maneuvers to build up enough energy to escape Earth’s gravity.
The ExoMars mission will arrive at Mars on Oct. 19, making it the European Space Agency’s second probe to explore the red planet.
The launch of Bangladesh’s first communications satellite on top of a new version of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket is set for Thursday, officials said Monday, after a data review following a hold-down engine firing last week.
A commercial satellite designed to broadcast hundreds of television channels across Europe and better link European surveillance satellites and the International Space Station to scientists on the ground took off Friday from Kazakhstan aboard a Proton rocket.
Ground crews returned to work Monday at the Guiana Space Center, a European-run spaceport on the northeastern shore of South America, after protests and a general strike across French Guiana interrupted launch operations for five weeks.
