Q&A with Curt Blake, president of Spaceflight Industries (members only)

A pair of innovative satellites for ViaSat and Eutelsat, valued at approximately $800 million, are scheduled to lift off Thursday on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana, hauling the heaviest and costliest commercial payload ever launched.

Tech giant Amazon is adding a fifth rocket to launch its satellite internet constellation. In a surprise move on Friday afternoon, the company announced it purchased three flights aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets to send batched of its Project Kuiper satellites to low Earth orbit.

The Starlink 6-40 mission marked a rare Leap Day launch from the Cape. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 rocket occurred at 10:30 a.m. EST (1530 UTC) from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.