Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

One job deemed essential by the European Space Agency coronavirus pandemic involves shepherding the BepiColombo spacecraft through a high-speed flyby of planet Earth next month, an immovable event on the $1.8 billion mission’s seven-year journey to Mercury.

A 151-foot-tall Soyuz launcher climbed into space from French Guiana on Thursday with the Boeing-built SES 15 communications satellite bound for an operating position over the Americas in geostationary orbit.

SpaceX launched a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office on Monday after a first stage sensor problem halted a countdown Sunday. Liftoff from launch pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida occurred at 7:15 a.m. EDT (1115 GMT), and the first stage landed at nearby Cape Canaveral around nine minutes later. The upper stage’s flight entered a pre-planned news blackout a few minutes after launch.