Photos: Falcon takes flight

Crowned with a Japanese telecommunications satellite, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket sits atop its Cape Canaveral launch pad hours before its scheduled blastoff Friday.

A Falcon 9 rocket powered by a first stage booster recovered after a launch in July is being readied for another flight Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The launch of a European Ariane 5 rocket was aborted moments after its main engine ignited Tuesday. The dramatic last-second hold was the first time an Ariane rocket launch was aborted after engine start since March 2011. Arianespace has not set a new target launch date for the mission, which will loft two U.S.-built communications satellites for Intelsat and B-SAT.