Live coverage: Two satellites lift off aboard Ariane 5

Blaming a slew of technical snags and “avoidable errors,” NASA officials said Tuesday that the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, already years behind schedule, will be delayed to 2020, potentially pushing the mission’s development cost above an $8 billion cap mandated by Congress.

A powerful Ariane 5 rocket soared into space with a European weather satellite and Brazilian telecom platform this week, lighting up its remote French Guiana spaceport carved out of the jungle on the northern coast of South America. Check out imagery of the sunset blastoff.

The first flight of the rocket will carry several payloads unto low Earth orbit for a variety of customers, including NASA. The rocket launched from French Guiana on July 9, 2024, at 4 p.m. GFT (3 p.m. EDT, 1900 UTC), however, it ran into the anomaly about an hour and 50 minutes into the mission.