Watch the Falcon Heavy fire up its engines

A Russian Soyuz rocket lifted off Friday night from a tropical spaceport in French Guiana with a commercial communications satellite setting off on a dual mission to demonstrate new space technologies and bridge the Atlantic with data, video and voice relays. Launch occurred at 0103:34 GMT Saturday (8:03:34 p.m. EST Friday).

The mission was SpaceX’s third orbital launch of the year and 99th in total from Launch Complex 39. Liftoff of the Starlink 12-11 mission occurred at 10:27 a.m. EST (1527 UTC).

Northrop Grumman’s second robotic life extension spacecraft docked with an Intelsat satellite in geosynchronous orbit Monday, the first link-up between a commercial servicing mission and an operational communications craft.