Live coverage: Ariane 5 blasts off with two Intelsat satellites

SpaceX teams across the United States are readying for what the company’s chief operating officer predicts will be a record number of launches in 2020. Before the end of January, SpaceX aims to perform four Falcon 9 launches from Florida’s Space Coast — three for the company’s Starlink broadband network, and a crucial in-flight abort test for the Crew Dragon spacecraft no earlier than Jan. 11.

A United Launch Atlas 5 rocket is set to launch the U.S. Air Force’s fifth Advanced Extremely High Frequency communications satellite from Cape Canaveral. This timeline shows the major mission events planned over a nearly six-hour flight to an optimized geostationary transfer orbit.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket powered by a reused first stage climbed into orbit Tuesday from California’s Central Coast, carrying five satellites to upgrade Iridium’s global messaging service and two research craft to study Earth’s water cycle.