Proton rocket blasts off with part of European space 'data highway'

Reuters

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - A Russian Proton rocket blasted off in Kazakhstan on Friday night to put into orbit both the first part of Europe's new space "data highway" and a Eutelsat communications satellite. The 19-story tall Russian-built rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 1720 ET (4:20 a.m. local time). The EDRS-A node that it is carrying is the first building block of the European Data Relay Satellite (EDRS), a "big data" highway costing nearly 500 million euros ($545 million) that will harness new laser-based communications technology. (Reporting by Maria Sheahan; editing by Grant McCool)