Q&A with Giulio Ranzo, CEO of Avio (members only)

Unimpeded by rain showers and a dark gray blanket of low clouds, an Ariane 5 rocket thundered away from a European-run space base in the jungle of French Guiana Tuesday to place four Galileo navigation satellites in orbit, an on-target deployment that should improve the location accuracy of new smartphones around the world.

NASA safety advisors on Thursday lauded hardware milestones on Boeing and SpaceX commercial crew capsules, but said multiple technical issues, including problems with parachutes, must be resolved before the human-rated ships are ready to carry astronauts, adding that both companies continue to pursue schedules that appear to be unachievable.

The Atlas 5 rocket blasts off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California for its late-night ascent to deploy the NROL-42 payload for the National Reconnaissance Office.