Live coverage: Station crew lands in Kazakhstan

SpaceX’s launch of a cluster of communications satellites for Orbcomm, set for as soon as next weekend, holds the headlines, but the company’s Falcon 9 rocket could fly at least four times in the next two months, assuming smooth launch campaigns and no glitches.

The European-built Solar Orbiter spacecraft was installed on top of its United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 launcher Friday at Cape Canaveral, ready for final charging and checkouts before liftoff Feb. 9 to finally begin a more than $1.5 billion science mission first approved by the European Space Agency nearly 20 years ago.

The last flight of the single-core variant of United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4 rocket lifted off at 9:06 a.m. EDT (1306 GMT) Thursday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. The 207-foot-tall launcher carried a GPS navigation satellite into orbit for the U.S. Air Force.