Falcon 9 launches with GovSat 1 as seen from Kennedy Space Center (members only)

Look back on last week’s blastoff of an Ariane 5 rocket from the edge of the Amazon jungle in French Guiana carrying four Galileo navigation satellites into orbit.

Europe’s MetOp-C weather satellite launched aboard a Russian-built Soyuz rocket toward polar orbit Tuesday night from French Guiana, joining an international fleet of meteorological observatories critical for global weather forecasting. Liftoff occurred at 7:47 p.m. EST Tuesday (0047 GMT Wednesday).

Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins launched today in 1969 aboard Apollo 11 for one of the defining moments of the 20th century — man’s first landing on the moon.