Q&A with Guido Levrini, ESA’s manager of the Copernicus space segment

Two commercial communications satellites heading for orbits more than 22,000 miles above Earth are scheduled for launch from a jungle launch facility in French Guiana at sunset Tuesday on top of an Ariane 5 rocket.

One week after two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut arrived at the International Space Station, the three crew members they’re replacing strapped into their own Soyuz spacecraft, undocked and returned to Earth Wednesday with a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out a 196-day mission.

Five European satellites packaged inside an aerodynamic fairing have joined a Soyuz rocket its launch pad in the French Guiana jungle for a roaring ride into orbit Friday.