Atlas 5/Cygnus NASA TV broadcast

The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft — assembled in Britain and set for liftoff in February — has completed environmental testing in Germany and is scheduled to ride a cargo plane to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to begin launch preparations Oct. 31, several weeks earlier than planned to avoid complications stemming from Brexit.

NOAA’s GOES-S weather satellite, the latest in a series of meteorological observatories dating back to 1975, lifted off Thursday from Cape Canaveral aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.

After a quarter-century readying Global Positioning System satellites for launch at a Cape Canaveral Air Force Station processing hub, the final bird rolled out Saturday as the navigation program transitions to a new era.