Live coverage: Russian-American-British crew launches toward space station

The first in a planned multi-decade series of European land imaging satellites is fastened on top of a solid-fueled Vega launcher at a French Guiana space base for liftoff Monday, kicking off a mission to track everything from global crop growth to urban sprawl.

For the fourth time this month, SpaceX has launched a Falcon 9 rocket from Florida’s Space Coast with another 60 Starlink internet satellites. Liftoff of the Falcon 9 from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station occurred at 4:28 a.m. EDT (0828 GMT) Wednesday. The Falcon 9’s booster landed on an offshore drone ship.

The shift in launch date is to allow more time to build in redundancy to account for the helium leak. The launch is currently scheduled for no earlier than Saturday, May 25, at 3:09 p.m. EDT (1909 UTC).