Live coverage: Ariane 5 successful in middle-of-the-night launch

SpaceX launched its 12th Falcon 9 rocket of the year Thursday from California with Taiwan’s Formosat 5 Earth observation satellite. The two-stage rocket lifted off at 11:51 a.m. PDT (2:51 p.m. EDT; 1851 GMT) and deployed the Taiwanese-built spacecraft into polar orbit. The Falcon 9’s first stage booster successfully landed on a drone ship downrange in the Pacific Ocean.

Two U.S.-built commercial communications satellites moved to their last stop on Earth on Tuesday, when an Ariane 5 rocket rolled out to a launch pad at the edge of the Amazon jungle on the eve of liftoff.

The launch of 60 Starlink Internet satellites aboard a Falcon 9 rocket Sunday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida will mark SpaceX’s first mission to fly a Falcon first stage for a fifth time, and the second to launch with a reused payload fairing.