Q&A with Josef Aschbacher, director of ESA’s Earth observation programs (members only)

A Russian Proton rocket rolled out to its launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Friday, riding a specially-built rail car with Europe’s ExoMars mission bound for the red planet.

Rocket Lab’s privately-developed Electron launcher soared into orbit from New Zealand on Saturday, U.S. time, a success that puts the company’s founder said will hasten dedicated, frequent and affordable rides to space for small satellites.

After two of the last three Vega rocket launches ended in failure, Arianespace launched another Vega launcher from French Guiana at 9:50 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0150 GMT Thursday) with Airbus’s Pléiades Neo 3 commercial Earth observation satellite and five secondary payloads.