Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

A powerful Ariane 5 rocket soared into space with a European weather satellite and Brazilian telecom platform this week, lighting up its remote French Guiana spaceport carved out of the jungle on the northern coast of South America. Check out imagery of the sunset blastoff.

Check out photos of a solid-fueled Vega launcher as it zipped away from its launch pad in Kourou, French Guiana, with Europe’s IXV mission Wednesday.

United Launch Alliance teams began stacking an Atlas 5 rocket inside a vertical hangar at Cape Canaveral Monday in preparation for an early February launch with the Solar Orbiter spacecraft, a joint U.S.-European probe that will take the first pictures of the sun’s poles.