Photos: Falcon takes flight

A European-built Ariane 5 rocket rolled out to a launch pad in the South American jungle Wednesday with a pair of commercial television broadcast satellites for AT&T and Eutelsat, setting the stage for liftoff Thursday evening.

Two more roll-out solar arrays will ride a SpaceX cargo ship to the International Space Station this weekend, continuing a years-long mid-life station upgrade as NASA plans procurement of a final set of new solar wings to fully reinforce the lab’s power supply.

An upgraded model of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket fired into orbit early Sunday from Florida’s Space Coast, hoisting a record-setting 7.8-ton communications satellite for Telesat toward its planned perch more than 22,000 miles over the equator.