Q&A with Guglielmo Aglietti, RemoveDebris principal investigator (members only)

Viasat has modified an existing contract with Arianespace to launch one of the company’s next-generation broadband Internet satellites on Europe’s next-generation Ariane 6 rocket, rather than on-board an Ariane 5 launcher, officials announced Monday.

A long-lost fragment of space debris is falling toward Earth for a searing re-entry over the Indian Ocean on Friday, but the widely-watched event poses no risk to people.

One day after a Soyuz crew transport rolled out to a launch pad at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, a similar Russian booster made a comparable journey Monday halfway around the world in tropical French Guiana for liftoff Thursday with two European Galileo navigation satellites.