Live coverage: Ariane 5 rocket deploys satellites for Australia, India

Keith Gendreau, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, recently spoke with Spaceflight Now about a new experiment on the International Space Station to demonstrate X-ray communications in space for the first time.

Confident in technical and procedural fixes implemented since a launch in August left two Galileo satellites in the wrong orbit, officials with Europe’s navigation program say Friday’s liftoff of two identical craft on a Soyuz rocket will try to fill the same slots in the fleet as targeted by last year’s failed mission.

Watch a view of the Falcon 9 rocket’s liftoff Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center as seen from the press site around three miles from the launch pad.