Live coverage: SpaceX launches another batch of Starlink satellites

Five European satellites, including a Italian radar surveillance craft and an ESA exoplanet probe, lifted off Wednesday at 0854 GMT (3:54 a.m. EST) from French Guiana aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. A launch attempt Tuesday was scrubbed due to a software concern with the launch vehicle.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket topped by the Air Force’s X-37B miniature space shuttle blasted off from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 41 today to deliver the spaceplane into orbit.

The attachment of a mounting bracket for Virgin Orbit’s smallsat launcher under the wing of a modified passenger jetliner portends the start of a series of captive carry tests with a full-scale model of the rocket, culminating in a drop of the vehicle before the first orbital launch attempt.