Q&A with Michel Denis, ExoMars flight director

A rocket-transporting railroad car ferried a Proton rocket to its launch pad Friday at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for final checkouts and testing before the vehicle’s scheduled June 21 liftoff with the Russian-German Spektr-RG X-ray telescope.

A massive spacecraft bound for Mars lifted off on a Russian Proton rocket Monday, riding more than 2 million pounds of thrust from the launcher’s six main engines through low clouds hanging over the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The European Space Agency’s LISA Pathfinder spacecraft, destined to test the concept of gravitational wave detection a million miles from Earth, is nearly ready for launch Dec. 2.