Q&A with Michel Denis, ExoMars flight director

Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute leads the science team on NASA’s Juno mission, a robotic spacecraft now on final approach to Jupiter designed to probe the giant world’s deep interior and unravel how the solar system’s king planet formed.

The launch of a Japanese H-2A rocket with the Emirates Mars Mission, a Mars orbiter developed in partnership between Emirati and U.S. scientists, was delayed Tuesday due to poor weather at the H-2A’s launch site on Tanegashima Island in southern Japan. Officials later announced that liftoff would not occur Thursday, again citing bad weather at the launch site. A new launch attempt is scheduled for Sunday, weather permitting.

An International Launch Services Proton rocket lifted off with a communications satellite for Intelsat and DirecTV at 0710 GMT (3:10 a.m. EDT) Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan after a one-day delay to resolve an issue with an electrical connector on the booster.