Live coverage: SpaceX supply ship returns to Earth

A pair of Earth-imaging satellites for the Italian military and a French-Israeli environmental monitoring project lifted off from French Guiana aboard a European Vega rocket at 0158:33 GMT Wednesday (9:58:33 p.m. EDT Tuesday).

The satellite will help offset capabilities lost with the loss of Thuraya 3 in April 2024. Liftoff of the Thuraya 4-NGS mission from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station happened on Friday, Jan. 3 at 8:27 p.m. EST (0127 UTC).

As SpaceX engineers put together the first model of the company’s new Falcon Heavy rocket, officials have not ruled out flying a paying customer’s satellite aboard the maiden flight of the humongous launcher scheduled later this year, the company’s president told Spaceflight Now.