Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

A Vega rocket launched from French Guiana at 0149:24 GMT Tuesday (8:49:24 p.m. EST Monday) with Europe’s fifth Sentinel environmental satellite. The Sentinel 2B observatory will take the pulse of Earth’s vegetation, monitoring crops, forests, urban sprawl, and pollution from polar orbit.

Europe’s ExoMars rover will not be ready for launch in 2018, officials said Monday, forcing a two-year delay for the ambitious mission to drill into the Martian surface and search for the remnants of past life.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 8:37 a.m. EDT (1237 GMT) today to deploy a classified satellite in service to the national security of the United States. Follow the mission in our live journal.