Q&A with Scott Bolton, principal investigator on NASA’s Juno mission

Arianespace has opened the year with two contracts to deliver commercial television and broadband satellites to orbit aboard Ariane 5 rockets launched from French Guiana in 2018 and 2019.

A $1.8 billion U.S. Air Force communications satellite rode a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket into orbit Wednesday from Cape Canaveral, joining three similar craft perched more than 22,000 miles above Earth to ensure government leaders can remain in contact with military commanders in the worst-case scenario of nuclear war.

Towering more than 20 stories tall, the 8-million-pound mobile gantry at the Atlas 5 rocket’s launch pad at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, was retracted into position late Friday for liftoff of NASA’s InSight mission to Mars.