Take a walk around the Ariane 5 launch pad in French Guiana after the 16-story rocket arrived at the complex for liftoff Thursday with four European Galileo navigation satellites.
Read our launch preview for more information on the mission.
The first in a planned multi-decade series of European land imaging satellites is fastened on top of a solid-fueled Vega launcher at a French Guiana space base for liftoff Monday, kicking off a mission to track everything from global crop growth to urban sprawl.
For the fourth time this week, a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral was stopped with seconds remaining in the countdown Friday night, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket automatically aborted its liftoff with a new GPS navigation satellite during the engine startup sequence.
An Ariane 5 rocket launched from French Guiana at 2150 GMT (5:50 p.m. EDT) Thursday with a pair of European-built communications satellites for the Brazilian government and KTsat, a South Korean telecom operator. Liftoff was delayed more than one hour to resolve a problem with ground equipment.