Video: Falcon 9 test-fired before space station cargo launch (members only)

India’s most powerful communications satellite will soon be flown back to its manufacturing plant in Bangalore for additional checks, officials said this week, forcing Arianespace to scrap plans for an Ariane 5 launch in late May that was to be co-manifested with a U.S.-built television broadcast satellite for Intelsat and the government of Azerbaijan.

A commercial communications satellite will blast off Thursday from French Guiana on top of a Soyuz rocket, on the way to a station over the Americas to supply bandwidth to airline travelers and broadcasters in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The mission was SpaceX’s 560th Falcon 9 rocket launch to date. SpaceX accomplished liftoff from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on Nov. 9 at 3:10 a.m. EST (0810 UTC).