Live coverage: European mini-shuttle back on Earth

A Russian Soyuz rocket fired off a launch pad in French Guiana Monday evening with satellite missions to monitor Earth’s environment, test Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and inspire the next generation of space engineers.

Tugged along a historic route leading to the launch pad where Yuri Gagarin took off 1961 to become the first person in space, a Soyuz rocket rolled out of its assembly hangar in Kazakhstan and stood up on its launch mount Sunday.

The first 34 satellites manufactured on a new commercial spacecraft assembly line just outside the gates of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida are scheduled for liftoff on a Soyuz rocket Thursday halfway around the world in Kazakhstan, kicking off a sequence of up to 20 launches from three countries to deploy nearly 650 satellites for OneWeb’s global Internet network.