Q&A with Michel Denis, ExoMars flight director

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.

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.

NASA’s pioneering Mars helicopter Ingenuity continues to outperform its design specifications, having now notched up more than 50 record-breaking forays across the Red Planet’s surface, 10 times as many flights as originally planned for.