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

An EchoStar communications satellite designed to link Europeans with voice and broadband data services rode into orbit on top of a Russian Proton rocket Thursday, deploying into an on-target orbit after nine hours of maneuvers by the launcher’s Breeze M upper stage.

Russian officials have delayed until Saturday the launch of a Proton rocket from Kazakhstan with the Spektr-RG X-ray astronomy observatory, an ambitious mission jointly developed with Germany to probe dark energy.

A commercial broadcast satellite will blast off from Kazakhstan on Saturday aboard a Proton rocket to transmit television, multimedia and broadband services across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.