Video: NASA mission launched to return sample of asteroid

In a significant milestone preparing for liftoff of the world’s most powerful rocket, SpaceX test-fired 31 of the booster’s 33 methane-fueled engines Thursday in South Texas as the company eyes a launch attempt as soon as March.

Sporting a new blue and white paint scheme to mark the upcoming 60th anniversary of the first human spaceflight, a Russian Soyuz rocket loaded with 38 international satellites has rolled out to its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan ahead of a planned liftoff Saturday.

The first six broadband satellites for OneWeb, which envisions a constellation of hundreds of orbiting relay stations beaming Internet signals down to Earth, lifted off Wednesday aboard a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana. Launch occurred at 2137 GMT (4:37 p.m. EST).