Live coverage: Intelsat’s first “Epic” satellite in orbit after Ariane 5 launch

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 7:05 p.m. EDT (2305 GMT) today to send NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft on a seven-year, 4.4-billion-mile mission to rendezvous with Asteroid Bennu and bring a sample of the primordial object back to Earth. Follow the mission in our live journal.

A high-power Russian satellite designed to deliver broadband Internet connections and relay television and videoconferencing signals fired into orbit Wednesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

SpaceX and the Egyptian satellite operator Nilesat have signed a contract to launch the Nilesat 301 communications craft on a Falcon 9 rocket in 2022, SpaceX confirmed this week.