Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

After months of delays caused by launch vehicle issues and the coronavirus pandemic, a Russian Soyuz rocket and Fregat upper stage took off from South America and delivered the French-built Falcon Eye 2 military observation satellite to an on-target orbit Tuesday night for the United Arab Emirates.

A new satellite to monitor crops, pollution and the growth of cities blasted off Monday from a tropical spaceport in French Guiana, adding another piece to Europe’s multibillion-dollar fleet of spacecraft tasked to track Earth’s ever-changing environment.

A Soyuz rocket carrying Russian commander Sergey Ryzhikov, flight engineer Sergey Kud-Sverchkov, and veteran NASA astronaut Kate Rubins blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:45 a.m. EDT (0545 GMT) Wednesday. The Soyuz crew took off on a three-hour express trip to the International Space Station that culminated in a docking at 4:48 a.m. EDT (0848 GMT).