Video: Atlas 5 rocket launches space station cargo mission

Flying for the first time this year, a Proton rocket streaked into space Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan with two Russian Express communications satellites that will beam television, radio and broadband signals across the country.

A critical test firing Saturday of the four main engines powering the first stage of NASA’s gargantuan Space Launch System moon rocket is the final major hurdle before the fully assembled booster’s costly, oft-delayed launch late this year on an unpiloted test flight.

Headed to a relic from the solar system’s formation over four billion years ago, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx sample return craft was moved to Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 launch pad today in preparation for liftoff Thursday aboard an Atlas 5 rocket en route to Asteroid Bennu hoping to find the seeds of life.