Live coverage: Two satellites lift off aboard Ariane 5

An Ariane 5 launcher fired into space from French Guiana, hauling two commercial satellites destined to broadcast television to Latin America for Intelsat, DirecTV and Argentina’s national telecom company.

Targeting a pair of satellite launches in June and July, ground teams will resume work at the Guiana Space Center in South America next week after a nearly two-month pause in Arianespace’s launch campaigns due to the coronavirus pandemic.

SpaceX is preparing this week for the second flight of the upgraded “Block 5” version of the company’s Falcon 9 rocket, and a hold-down firing of the booster was accomplished Wednesday at Cape Canaveral ahead of a middle-of-the-night launch this weekend with a Canadian-owned commercial communications satellite. The static fire test occurred at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT) Wednesday.