Q&A with Alvaro Gimenez, ESA’s director of science

A balky interplanetary seismic instrument that ran into technical problems in 2015, forcing a two-year delay in the launch of NASA’s InSight lander to Mars, cleared a major test last week after engineers redesigned part of the sensor package, boosting confidence that the mission will be ready to blast off in May 2018.

The mission featured the launch of NASA’s largest spacecraft bound on a planetary mission. Liftoff from Launch Complex 39A happened 12:06 p.m. EDT (1606 UTC).

The liftoff of a European satellite to measure global wind fields has been delayed 24 hours to Wednesday in hopes of a better weather forecast at the Vega rocket’s launch base in French Guiana, officials announced Monday.