Live coverage: Veteran three-man crew docks with space station

A Soyuz rocket lifted off from French Guiana on Thursday, launching four satellites owned by O3b Networks nearly 5,000 miles above Earth to expand access to high-speed Internet in the developing world.

Four satellites set to join O3b’s expanding broadband network successfully launched Friday on top of a Russian-built Soyuz booster from French Guiana, joining 12 other craft linking developing nations, far-flung islands, cruise ships and other hard-to-reach locales with the Internet.

The Falcon 9 booster for SpaceX’s next mission fired up briefly on a Cape Canaveral launch pad Sunday in a routine pre-flight test before a scheduled launch Friday night to kick off the final flight of the first version of the company’s Dragon cargo capsule to the International Space Station.