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

Watch a time lapse video chronicling several days of activity to ready the European Space Agency’s sleek IXV re-entry demonstrator for flight.

Flight controllers at NASA’s mission control center in Houston have completed the robotic swap out of a failed power distribution unit outside the International Space Station, clearing a hurdle ahead of Friday’s predawn launch from Cape Canaveral of a SpaceX supply ship.

The European Space Agency has cinched an agreement with Arianespace for the October 2018 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope aboard an Ariane 5 rocket, which will dispatch the nearly $10 billion observatory on a bold mission that promises to rewrite astronomy textbooks.