Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 12:26 p.m. PDT (3:26 p.m. EDT; 1926 GMT) Friday with another batch of 52 Starlink internet satellites. The mission is the first of two SpaceX launches scheduled Friday, with another Falcon 9 poised for liftoff from Florida a little more than four hours later.

A Norwegian communications satellite designed to connect far-flung clients and a Franco-Italian military spacecraft blasted off Sunday aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana. Liftoff from the tropical spaceport occurred at 2000 GMT (4 p.m. EDT).

Follow the key events of the Soyuz rocket’s ascent into orbit from the Guiana Space Center with the first COSMO-SkyMed Second Generation, or CSG 1, radar observation satellite, the European Space Agency’s CHEOPS exoplanet telescope, and three CubeSats.