Live coverage: ExoMars orbiter steers into orbit around Mars, lander’s fate TBD

Swiss-based in-orbit servicing startup ClearSpace has contracted Arianespace to launch its first debris removal mission to capture and deorbit a piece of space debris.

An Ariane 5 rocket and four Galileo navigation satellites launched from French Guiana at 1125 GMT (7:25 a.m. EDT), beginning a four-hour climb into orbit more than 14,000 miles above Earth.

Watch a video replay of Friday night’s blastoff of a Soyuz rocket from the Guiana Space Center with Hispasat 36W-1, a communications satellite developed by OHB in Germany for Spain’s Hispasat to test out new telecom technologies and provide data networking, video and broadband services over South America and Europe.