Falcon 9 launches Starlink satellites (members only)

A Russian Soyuz launcher fired into orbit from the remote steppe of Kazakhstan Thursday with 34 satellites built on Florida’s Space Coast, commencing a sequence of launches to deploy a network of nearly 650 spacecraft for a global broadband network owned by OneWeb.

A civilian-operated Chinese oceanography satellite deployed in orbit after lifting off on a Long March 2C rocket Wednesday, joining a predecessor launched in 2018 to monitor ocean color and water temperatures.

NASA officials say the International Space Station’s logistics chain was designed to absorb a launch failure like the mishap that destroyed an Orbital Sciences Corp. cargo craft in October, but pressure is on SpaceX to deliver supplies on time this year.