Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

SpaceX has postponed the launch of its next Falcon 9 rocket indefinitely. The rocket was originally scheduled take off Wednesday from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida with a top secret U.S. government payload named Zuma. A few minutes after launch, the Falcon 9’s first stage will return for a landing at nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

China led the world with 34 orbital launch attempts in 2019 — including two failures — followed by 22 flights from Russian-operated launch pads and 21 satellite delivery missions originating from U.S. spaceports, all of which were successful.

The European Space Agency’s $1.7 billion robotic Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer mission is ready for liftoff Thursday from French Guiana, beginning an eight-year cruise to the solar system’s largest planet before becoming the first-ever spacecraft to orbit one of Jupiter’s moons in the 2030s.