Live coverage of the countdown and launch of an Ariane 5 rocket with the DirecTV and Sky Mexico 1 communications satellites. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
Mission Reports
Live coverage: Japan’s enhanced Epsilon booster blasts off
A Japanese Epsilon rocket launched Tuesday from the Uchinoura Space Center, a shoreline spaceport on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, with a space weather research probe to study phenomena inside the turbulent Van Allen radiation belts. Liftoff of the 85-foot-tall rocket occurred at 1100 GMT (6 a.m. EST).
Ariane 5