Live coverage of the countdown and launch of a Vega rocket rocket with the European Space Agency’s LISA Pathfinder mission. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
Mission Reports
NASA gears up for brisk launch pace, starting with weather satellite
Engineers at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center tasked with overseeing launches of scientific satellites and interplanetary probes will be responsible later this year for ensuring six major missions safely get into space over a span of a little more than six months, beginning with the launch of NOAA’s new GOES-S weather observatory on an Atlas 5 rocket March 1.
Mission Reports
Managers confident ahead of critical launch for Galileo navigation system
Confident in technical and procedural fixes implemented since a launch in August left two Galileo satellites in the wrong orbit, officials with Europe’s navigation program say Friday’s liftoff of two identical craft on a Soyuz rocket will try to fill the same slots in the fleet as targeted by last year’s failed mission.