Live coverage: Soyuz rocket lifts off with new Galileo satellites

Boosted by two solid-fueled motors and a hydrogen-burning main engine, a European Ariane 5 rocket took off Thursday from French Guiana with a Japanese military communications payload and a U.S.-built, British-owned broadband satellite, returning to service after a January mission placed two spacecraft in the wrong orbit.

Firing off the launch pad with more than a half-million pounds of thrust, a Vega rocket soared into space Monday night from French Guiana with Europe’s Sentinel 2B environmental satellite.

A Russian Soyuz rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome at 2:07 a.m. EDT (0607 GMT) Monday with 38 small and medium-size satellites for customers in 18 countries.