Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

On the mission’s third launch attempt, SpaceX sent a Falcon Heavy rocket aloft at 8:26 p.m. EDT Sunday (0026 UTC Monday) from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The nearly five-hour mission to a near-geosynchronous orbit carried the first satellite for the ViaSat 3 space-based internet network, along with two smaller rideshare payloads.

An Ariane 5 countdown in French Guiana was aborted Tuesday with the European-made rocket’s main engine already running, postponing the launch of two commercial communications satellites until engineers can resolve the problem.

A European Vega rocket is scheduled to launch Tuesday from a tropical spaceport in South America carrying two Israeli-built satellites for the Italian military and a French-Israeli environmental observatory.