Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

Europe’s Sentinel 3B environmental satellite was shipped to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia’s far northern Arkhangelsk region in March for a month-long campaign to prepare the spacecraft for liftoff aboard a Rockot launcher.

Rocket Lab’s second Electron booster lifted off from New Zealand’s North Island on Saturday, U.S. time, and reached orbit after an eight-minute climb over the Pacific Ocean. Liftoff with three commercial CubeSats occurred at 8:43 p.m. EST Saturday (0143 GMT; 2:43 p.m. New Zealand time Sunday).

SpaceX launched the Starlink 3-5 mission from California Thursday morning, following a last-minute abort Wednesday due to concerns about landing of the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage booster on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base at 6:40 a.m. PDT (9:40 a.m. EDT; 1340 UTC) with 46 Starlink internet satellites.