Photos: Atlas 5 rocket aims for International Space Station

An Ariane 5 rocket took off from French Guiana Friday with the heaviest interplanetary science probe ever launched, kicking off a $1.7 billion European Space Agency mission on a decade-long quest to Jupiter’s icy moons in search of environments that could be habitable for life.

Stormy weather across Florida’s Space Coast forced SpaceX to call off the long-awaited launch of two astronauts aboard the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, the first piloted flight to orbit from U.S. soil in nearly nine years.

Keeping up a run of middle-of-the-night launches from Cape Canaveral, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket powered by a recycled first stage booster climbed into orbit early Tuesday with the Indonesian Merah Putih communications satellite.