Live coverage: Two Americans, one Russian back on Earth from space station

Four satellites tucked inside the tip of a Soyuz rocket lifted off Thursday, heading for a 5,000-mile-high orbit to expand the reach of O3b’s broadband communications network. Liftoff from the European-run spaceport in French Guiana occurred at 1:37 p.m. EST (1837 GMT).

SpaceX has moved up its next launch to Wednesday, one day earlier than previously planned. A Falcon 9 rocket will take off with the next 60 satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink broadband Internet network at 3:37 p.m. EDT (1937 GMT) Wednesday from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. There’s a 90 percent chance of favorable weather for launch Wednesday.

Rocket Lab launched a radar imaging satellite Tuesday for the Japanese company Synspective. The small Earth observation payload lifted off from New Zealand at 5:09 a.m. EST (1009 GMT) aboard an Electron rocket. Rocket Lab did not attempt to recover the Electron’s first stage on this mission.