Q&A with Emiliano Kargieman, founder and CEO of Satellogic (members only)

SpaceX’s third Falcon Heavy rocket took off from the Kennedy Space Center in a predawn launch Tuesday, delivering two dozen research and weather observation spacecraft into orbit on a marathon three-and-a-half mission for the U.S. Air Force. The mission included the successful landing of the Falcon Heavy’s two side boosters back at Cape Canaveral, and a SpaceX recovery boat netted part of the rocket’s payload fairing for the first time.

Europe is in the midst of launching the most thorough space-based environmental network ever deployed, with satellites to help officials respond to natural disasters, measure crop yield, monitor the health of oceans and ice caps, and track ozone in the atmosphere. Guido Levrini from ESA spoke to Spaceflight Now about the program on the eve of Sentinel 1B’s launch.

The Falcon 9 rocket set to launch the SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule on a test flight in February briefly ignited its Merlin main engines on pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday. The Crew Dragon test flight to the International Space Station is a precursor to the spaceship’s first mission with astronauts later this year.