Live coverage: Falcon 9 launches with Thai satellite and first stage lands at sea

A month-and-a-half after a general strike in French Guiana halted launch preparations, an Ariane 5 rocket arrived at its launch pad Wednesday on the northeastern coast of South America, a day before hauling two communications satellites into orbit for the Brazilian government and a South Korean company.

An accident Saturday during an abort engine test on a Crew Dragon test vehicle at Cape Canaveral sent a reddish-orange plume into the sky visible for miles around, a setback for SpaceX and NASA as teams prepare the capsule for its first mission with astronauts.

The Starlink 8-19 mission came at the end of the week kicked off by the launch of SpaceX’s Starship rocket, a Falcon Heavy rocket and two other Falcon 9 rockets. Liftoff happened at 7:31 p.m. EDT (2331 UTC) on Friday, Oct. 18.