Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

The European Space Agency has reserved an Ariane launcher to send a spacecraft toward Jupiter in May 2022, and the mission’s project manager said Tuesday officials could assign the probe to Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket, assuming the vehicle has a successful debut by the end of 2020.

An International Launch Services Proton rocket lifted off at 2137 GMT (4:37 p.m. EST) on Dec. 27 with the Astra 2G communications satellite, a new broadcasting platform owned by SES to beam television and broadband services to Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Extra testing of the James Webb Space Telescope and delays in assembling the powerful observatory will push back the $10 billion mission’s launch by at least six months to early 2019, officials announced last week as the telescope successfully completed an extensive performance test inside a cryogenic vacuum chamber in Houston.