Live coverage: SpaceX launches another batch of Starlink satellites

SpaceX moved closer to its next launch with a successful hold-down engine firing Saturday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, sailing through a readiness check for a planned liftoff Wednesday with a clandestine U.S. government payload named Zuma.

Rocket Lab’s next launch from New Zealand is set for no earlier than June 27 with a bundle of spacecraft including a commercial Earth-observing microsatellite for BlackSky, two CubeSats for U.S. Special Operations Command, a pair of tiny prototype data relay nodes for Swarm Technologies, a student-built payload from Australia, and a satellite whose identity and owner remain a secret.

A Vega rocket fired into space at 8:52 p.m. EST Monday (0152 GMT Tuesday) from the Guiana Space Center in South America, but the mission deviated from its planned trajectory. The rocket was boosting a Spanish Earth observation satellite and a French research payload into orbit.