Photos: Telecom satellites blast off from the jungle

Firing off the launch pad with more than a half-million pounds of thrust, a Vega rocket soared into space Monday night from French Guiana with Europe’s Sentinel 2B environmental satellite.

A Soyuz booster vaulted into a sunset sky over French Guiana on Wednesday evening, arcing north from the jungle spaceport in South America with six satellites to inaugurate OneWeb’s global broadband network.

A European Ariane 5 rocket climbed off its launch pad in French Guiana with nearly 3 million pounds of thrust Thursday, carrying two communications satellites to orbit for the Japanese military and British-based Avanti Communications.