Live coverage: Falcon 9 rocket test-fired in Florida

Blue Origin, the burgeoning, often secretive space company led by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, revealed plans Tuesday to build and launch reusable rockets on Florida’s Space Coast, adding another commercial tenant for historic real estate at Cape Canaveral.

With a second radar surveillance satellite already returning images less than three days after launch, managers in charge of Europe’s growing fleet of Sentinel environment-monitoring spacecraft will grapple with an immense ‘Big Data’ challenge as the multibillion-dollar program enters a new phase.

The launch of a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana with four more satellites Thursday to join SES’s O3b broadband network will help satisfy growing bandwidth demands in Latin America, Africa and the Pacific islands until the deployment of a new generation of upgraded spacecraft in 2021, SES officials said.