Video: Falcon 9 fires up engines on pad 39A (members only)

A sharp-eyed French military surveillance spacecraft is set for launch aboard a Soyuz rocket Monday from French Guiana into a 300-mile-high orbit, where it will collect the highest-resolution imagery ever produced by a European reconnaissance satellite.

Arianespace has received its first two confirmed launch contracts for Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket, and the company recently announced four more launch bookings to loft communications and weather satellites into orbit aboard Ariane 5 and Soyuz boosters from French Guiana.

A European Ariane 5 rocket will propel two communications satellites from a standstill to a speed of nearly 21,000 mph in 25 minutes during a launch Friday from French Guiana.