Live coverage: Two satellites lift off aboard Ariane 5

Armed with $460 million in fresh financing to grow its broadband communications capacity, O3b Networks has selected Thales Alenia Space to build eight new satellites and Arianespace to launch at least four of them aboard a Soyuz rocket in 2018.

Videos and photos help tell the story of Thursday’s launch of Europe’s LISA Pathfinder spacecraft, carrying high-tech thrusters and ultra-sensitive motion sensors to be used in a future gravitational wave detection mission, from French Guiana aboard a nearly 100-foot-tall (30-meter) Vega rocket.

A solid-fueled Vega launcher fired through a low cloud deck and sped into orbit from the South American jungle early Thursday with a pioneering European spacecraft that marks a key step in a century-long quest to detect elusive gravitational waves predicted to permeate the cosmos.