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

Seven Japanese and Vietnamese smallsats are set to ride Japan’s solid-fueled Epsilon launcher into orbit at 0050 GMT Friday (7:50 p.m. EST Thursday) on a mission that engineers say will demonstrate the light-class rocket’s ability to accommodate multiple payloads on a single flight.

Debuting lighter structural components to carry heavier satellites into orbit, a Russian Proton rocket fired into space from Kazakhstan on Thursday and successfully placed a U.S.-built television broadcast craft into orbit for Intelsat and DirecTV.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket disintegrated shortly after launch from Cape Canaveral on Sunday, dealing a blow to the entrepreneurial space company and NASA’s supply chain to the International Space Station.