Live coverage: Proton fires into space with Eutelsat 9B

Blaming a slew of technical snags and “avoidable errors,” NASA officials said Tuesday that the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, already years behind schedule, will be delayed to 2020, potentially pushing the mission’s development cost above an $8 billion cap mandated by Congress.

Photos captured by remote cameras placed at launch pad 39A show SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rocket soaring skyward Thursday evening atop more than 5 million pounds of thrust.

Launching from the edge of the Amazon jungle in South America, a Russian-built Soyuz booster fired into orbit Friday night with a Spanish-owned communications satellite built in Germany to test new commercial telecom technologies and provide video, voice and data relay services.