Europe’s LISA Pathfinder spacecraft, carrying high-tech thrusters and ultra-sensitive motion sensors to be used in a future gravitational wave detection mission, blasted off from French Guiana early Thursday aboard a nearly 100-foot-tall (30-meter) Vega rocket.
After lifting off at 0404 GMT Thursday (1:04 a.m. French Guiana time; 11:04 p.m. EDT Wednesday), the four-stage Vega booster turned east and accelerated into orbit with LISA Pathfinder, deploying the satellite an hour and 45 minutes later.
Read our full launch story for details on LISA Pathfinder’s pioneering mission.
The next 36 satellites for OneWeb’s broadband internet network fired into orbit from Russia’s Far East Friday on a Soyuz rocket, giving OneWeb 110 of a planned fleet of 650 spacecraft after the company emerged from bankruptcy earlier this year.
SES has selected Arianespace to launch a communications satellite ordered as part of a three-spacecraft procurement announced last month, after assigning the other two payloads for launches aboard SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets.
Flying with a reused first stage booster, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket climbed into orbit from Florida’s Space Coast early Monday with a commercial communications satellite for the Luxembourg-based operator SES.