Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

A Soyuz rocket took off from French Guiana on Thursday with the SES 15 communications satellite, a craft heading for an orbit more than 22,000 miles over the equator to provide airborne wifi and aeronautical navigation services over the United States.

The London-based mobile telecom provider Inmarsat and the Brazilian satellite operator Embratel Star One have selected Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket to launch two spacecraft from French Guiana in 2019.

The Rosetta spacecraft neared its comet Saturday, targeting a close flyby within four miles of the tiny world’s jagged nucleus to gain new up-close views of the comet and taste the growing vaporous cloud surrounding it.