Live coverage: H-2A rocket lifts off from Japan with navigation satellite

A small Japanese satellite scheduled for launch Friday on a Rocket Lab Electron booster will release hundreds of colorful sky pellets to fall into the atmosphere next year, creating an artificial meteor shower that could be visible to millions.

SpaceX’s next launch of satellites for the company’s Starlink broadband network — planned in the final days of 2019 — will carry one spacecraft with an experimental coating designed to make it less reflective in orbit, a first step in assuaging concerns from scientists who say the deployment of thousands more Starlink stations would impede some astronomical observations.

The nuclear power generator for NASA’s Perseverance rover has been installed on the spacecraft atop an Atlas 5 rocket at Cape Canaveral, and mission managers gave a green light Wednesday to continue preparations for the rover’s July 30 launch toward Mars.