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

SpaceX rolled a fully-assembled Falcon 9 booster out of its hangar and lifted it on top of a launch pad Friday for the first time since an explosion grounded the commercial rocket last year, setting the stage for a one-second launch window Saturday to take off from California’s Central Coast and deploy the first 10 satellites in orbit for a $3 billion upgrade to Iridium’s globe-spanning message relay network.

A Ukrainian-built Zenit booster and a Russian-made Fregat upper stage launched with an Angolan communications satellite Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, but engineers lost contact with the spacecraft soon after its deployment in orbit more than 22,000 miles above Earth.

Engineers are resuming preparations to launch an experimental European re-entry test vehicle on a Vega rocket Feb. 11 after a two-month delay ordered by safety authorities to analyze risks posed to the public by the booster’s unique trajectory after liftoff from French Guiana.