Live coverage: Vega rocket deploys second Sentinel satellite

The Italian PRISMA Earth observation satellite is set to ride a Vega launcher into a 382-mile-high (615-kilometer) orbit Thursday night from French Guiana on a mission that will take less than one hour from liftoff until spacecraft separation.

The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope will not happen in March 2021 — the mission’s previously-scheduled launch date — after the coronavirus pandemic forced a more than 50 percent reduction in staff levels at the observatory’s assembly and test facility.

A former space shuttle orbital maneuvering system engine has been delivered to Germany for attachment to the European-built service module destined to steer NASA’s next Orion spacecraft on a course around the moon on an uncrewed test flight in late 2018.