Live coverage: Europe’s next environmental sentinel lifts off

Failure struck Russia’s troubled space program for the second time in three weeks Saturday, when a Proton rocket carrying a high-tech satellite for Mexico’s new $1.6 billion space-based communications network crashed shortly after liftoff.

A reusable suborbital spaceplane the size of a business jet being developed by Boeing and the Defense Department’s research and development arm could be launching and landing at Cape Canaveral in 2020, officials said after the defense contractor won a competition last month to design and test the vehicle.

Rocket Lab’s light-class Electron launcher is set to take off on its second orbital test flight from New Zealand, aiming to deliver three small shoebox-sized CubeSats into low Earth orbit for Planet and Spire.