Live coverage: Ariane 5 blasts off with two Intelsat satellites

A Russian Soyuz-2.1b booster is standing at the Complex 31 launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan for liftoff with 34 OneWeb broadband satellites early Friday, local time.

A Soyuz rocket lifted off from French Guiana on Thursday, launching four satellites owned by O3b Networks nearly 5,000 miles above Earth to expand access to high-speed Internet in the developing world.

The launch next year of a commercial communications craft jointly managed by London-based Inmarsat and the Greek satellite operator Hellas-Sat has been switched from SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy to Arianespace’s Ariane 5 rocket, officials said Thursday.