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

A Russian Soyuz rocket made a railroad journey Wednesday to its launch pad in Kazakhstan, two days before blastoff with a crew of three spaceflight veterans from the United States, Italy and Russia heading for the International Space Station.

Take a walk around the Ariane 5 launch pad in French Guiana after the 16-story rocket arrived at the complex for liftoff Thursday with four European Galileo navigation satellites.

Teams working in Northrop Grumman’s spacecraft factory in Southern California have connected the spacecraft and science modules of the James Webb Space Telescope for the first time, a major milestone as engineers prepare to verify a fix to tears in the observatory’s sunshield, and begin launch vibration and acoustic testing in the coming months.