Live coverage: Two satellites lift off aboard Ariane 5

An Ariane 5 rocket journeyed from its assembly hangar to a nearby launch pad in French Guiana on Tuesday, a day before the heavy-duty launcher is scheduled for liftoff with the first in a new generation of high-capacity communications satellites for Intelsat.

A Northrop Grumman Cygnus supply ship carrying more than 7,200 pounds of provisions and experiments approached the International Space Station two days after its launch from Virginia, moving close enough for capture by the station’s robotic arm at 5:28 a.m. EST (1028 GMT) Monday.

A European environmental satellite designed to monitor Earth’s oceans, lakes and vegetation lifted off Wednesday aboard a modified Russian ballistic missile originally built to carry nuclear warheads. The mission launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome around 500 miles north of Moscow at 1757:51 GMT (1:57:51 p.m. EDT).