Q&A with Dan Hart, president and CEO of Virgin Orbit (members only)

Japan deployed the first of three navigation satellites it intends to launch in the next year Thursday, sending a 4.4-ton spacecraft on the way to an high-altitude orbital perch on top of an H-2A rocket to improve positioning data for drivers, hikers and government agencies in East Asia.

Earl Maize, who leads the Cassini mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, started working on the Saturn orbiter project in 1992. In September, the spacecraft will take an intentional plunge into Saturn’s atmosphere, gaining unprecedented up-close measurements and ending a 13-year odyssey round the ringed planet.

An experimental microsatellite built and owned by Astro Digital, a California-based company, rode Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket into orbit at 9:22 p.m. EDT Wednesday (0122 GMT Thursday) from New Zealand.