The Falcon Eye 1 military reconnaissance satellite for the United Arab Emirates is set to ride a Vega launcher into a 379-mile-high (611-kilometer) orbit Wednesday night from French Guiana on a mission that will take less than one hour from liftoff until spacecraft separation.

NASA and Northrop Grumman are expected to base the launch of an air-dropped Pegasus rocket with a NASA science satellite from Cape Canaveral later this year, after originally trying to get the mission into space from a remote island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Soaring into orbit in a rare middle-of-the-night launch from French Guiana, an Ariane 5 rocket took off at 0520 GMT (12:20 a.m. EST) Wednesday with a Eutelsat communications satellite to boost television capacity ahead of the Rio Olympics.