Live coverage: 400th Proton rocket takes off with Russian satellite

A Russian Soyuz booster climbed into orbit Monday with a U.S. Army colonel, a veteran Russian cosmonaut and a Canadian flight engineer, kicking off a six-hour chase of the International Space Station.

The Ariane 5 rocket’s fifth flight of the year launched at 2030 GMT (4:30 p.m. EDT) with the Sky Muster and Arsat 2 communications satellites, designed to deliver broadband Internet to far-flung Australian citizens and broadcast television and networking services to Argentina and nearby countries.

Michel Denis, flight director for Europe’s ExoMars mission, spoke with Spaceflight Now on March 22 about the status of the spacecraft a week after its blastoff from Kazakhstan en route to the red planet.