Video: Missile alert satellite launches atop Atlas 5

Rising atop a column of rocket exhaust lighting up the Kazakh steppe, a Russian Proton booster took off Thursday with a commercial communications satellite for AsiaSat.

China launched a Beidou navigation satellite Friday using a Long March 3C rocket, adding another node to a growing space-based network that Chinese officials say will broadcast positioning and timing signals around the world next year.

Boeing engineers are close to resolving concerns with the mass and aerodynamic shape of the company’s CST-100 Starliner commercial crew carrier, and officials are optimistic the spaceship will be ready to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station in early 2018.