Watch a live view of the Falcon 9 rocket on the launch pad

The Canadian telecom satellite operator Telesat plans to launch two multipurpose communications spacecraft aboard SpaceX Falcon rockets in 2018, the company disclosed this week in a quarterly earnings announcement.

With a second radar surveillance satellite already returning images less than three days after launch, managers in charge of Europe’s growing fleet of Sentinel environment-monitoring spacecraft will grapple with an immense ‘Big Data’ challenge as the multibillion-dollar program enters a new phase.

Decisions on the future of a joint robotic mission between NASA and the European Space Agency to demonstrate the ability to deflect an asteroid on a collision course with Earth have been put off until later this year after European governments declined to fully fund their part of the project in December.