Q&A with Alain Charmeau, CEO of Airbus Safran Launchers

Rocket Lab’s second launch from Virginia took off at 6:38 p.m. EDT (2238 GMT) Thursday. The company’s carbon fiber Electron small satellite launcher carried two commercial radar remote sensing satellites into orbit for Capella Space.

A huge U.S.-built, Canadian-owned communications satellite weighing 15,600 pounds, the heaviest spacecraft of its kind ever launched, is mounted to a Falcon 9 rocket for liftoff early Sunday from Cape Canaveral on a heavy-lifting mission that previously would have required SpaceX to throw away the launcher’s first stage booster.

Ground crews loaded time-critical experiments, including 20 mice to help scientists study muscle atrophy, into SpaceX’s commercial Dragon cargo capsule Thursday, a day before a launch planned from Cape Canaveral toward the International Space Station.