Live coverage: Ariane 5 blasts off with two Intelsat satellites

The long queue of satellites waiting on launches aboard SpaceX’s Falcon rockets — a backlog the company says is worth $7 billion — will stay grounded while investigators determine what caused a Falcon 9 booster to disintegrate after liftoff Sunday.

SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk said Thursday that the company’s recovery fleet in the Atlantic Ocean recovered the two halves of the Falcon Heavy’s payload shroud after the heavy-lifter’s second launch from the Kennedy Space Center. Musk said the company plans to reuse the fairing for the first time later this year.

The Italian PRISMA Earth observation satellite is set to ride a Vega launcher into a 382-mile-high (615-kilometer) orbit Thursday night from French Guiana on a mission that will take less than one hour from liftoff until spacecraft separation.