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

A commercial mission developed by the Japanese company Astroscale rocketed into space on a Russian Soyuz launcher Monday with 37 other payloads, ready to kick off an orbital “dance” with two small spacecraft demonstrating how satellite sweepers might one day drag junk out of orbit.

The next pair of spacecraft to join Europe’s Galileo navigation system are positioned for liftoff late Thursday aboard a Soyuz rocket. These photos chronicle the preparation of the satellites for launch at the Guiana Space Center.

After an 11-day delay, SpaceX planned to deploy 60 more Starlink broadband satellites with a Falcon 9 rocket launch scheduled for 10:22 a.m. EDT (1422 GMT) Monday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. But SpaceX scrubbed the launch less than a minute before liftoff due to bad weather.