Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

A camera packed inside Europe’s Automated Transfer Vehicle failed to transmit images from inside the disposable supply ship as it plunged through Earth’s atmosphere Feb. 15 and broke apart over the South Pacific Ocean, the European Space Agency said Friday.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 9:49:51 a.m. local time (12:49:51 p.m. EST; 1749:51 today to deploy a covert U.S. national security payload. Follow the ascent in our live journal.

SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 rocket is being readied for liftoff Aug. 14 on a space station resupply run. The two-stage rocket completed a hold-down engine firing Thursday at launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.