Live coverage: Ariane 5 successful in middle-of-the-night launch

An Ariane 5 rocket sent two Intelsat communications satellites into orbit Wednesday after liftoff from Europe’s space base in French Guiana at 2216 GMT (6:16 p.m. EDT; 7:16 p.m. local time).

More than six years after back-to-back failures left the Taurus rocket with an uncertain future, a redesigned version of the launcher sporting a new name is set to loft 10 small Earth-imaging satellites into orbit Tuesday from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 11:02 p.m. PDT Tuesday (2:02 a.m. EDT; 0602 UTC Wednesday) with another batch of 52 Starlink internet satellites.