Live coverage: NASA’s Juno spacecraft arrives at Jupiter

Five European satellites, including a Italian radar surveillance craft and an ESA exoplanet probe, lifted off Wednesday at 0854 GMT (3:54 a.m. EST) from French Guiana aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. A launch attempt Tuesday was scrubbed due to a software concern with the launch vehicle.

NASA officials have determined that the robotic InSight lander is ready for its mission to Mars after concluding that the probe should not suffer the same flaw that led to a crack in a heat shield undergoing tests for the space agency’s Mars 2020 rover, InSight’s chief scientist said Monday.

China placed is first spacecraft into orbit around Mars on Wednesday, continuing an international blitz on the Red Planet one day after the arrival of a spacecraft from United Arab Emirates and eight days before the landing of NASA’s Perseverance rover.