Live coverage: Ariane 5 lifts off on its first Galileo launch

Josef Aschbacher, head of ESA’s Earth observation programs, recently spoke with Spaceflight Now about the importance of the Sentinel 5P satellite mission designed for air quality measurements from space, and discussed increasing data usage from Europe’s Copernicus environmental network, and plans to expand the flagship Earth observation fleet.

Russian launch crews on two continents are putting the final touches on a pair of Soyuz rockets scheduled to blast off less than two hours apart Friday — one carrying a three-man crew to the space station, and another boosting two European navigation satellites into orbit from the Amazon jungle.

Five Earth-imaging spacecraft for the Peruvian government and Google’s Terra Bella satellite subsidiary are enclosed inside the nose cone of a Vega rocket for liftoff Thursday from French Guiana.