Video: Press site view of SpaceX resupply launch (members only)

A powerful Russian Proton booster launched from Kazakhstan at 0931:42 GMT (5:31:42 a.m. EDT) Monday with the first part of a multibillion-dollar Mars mission led by the European Space Agency. An upper stage engine fired four times over 10 hours to send the Mars orbiter and lander away from Earth.

The U.S. Air Force’s fifth Advanced Extremely High Frequency satellite, designed for secure, jam-resistant communications, is set for launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. These photos show the AEHF 5 satellite during encapsulation inside the Atlas 5’s payload shroud.

Aiming to reduce risk and costs, NASA has decided to launch the first two modules of the Gateway station in lunar orbit on the same heavy-lift rocket in 2023, rather than fly them on separate rockets and dock them together in deep space, according to the the agency’s chief human spaceflight manager.