Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

Arianespace launched an Ariane 5 rocket on its sixth and final flight of the year at 2037 GMT (3:37 p.m. EST) Tuesday, blasting off from Kourou, French Guiana, with India’s heaviest-ever satellite and a South Korean weather satellite equipped with a U.S.-made imaging camera.

Nearly a year-and-a-half after arriving at the red planet, Europe’s ExoMars orbiter is finally approaching a planned perch around 250 miles over the rust-colored world after repeatedly dipping into the Martian atmosphere to lower its orbit.

The European Space Agency’s Venus Express spacecraft has run out of fuel and will burn up in the atmosphere of Venus in January after a successful eight-year mission.