Live coverage: H-2A rocket blasts off with navigation satellite

Japan launched a pioneering observatory with X-ray vision Wednesday to peer into the mysterious, light-starved neighborhoods around black holes and study the genesis of galaxies and other cosmic mega-structures billions of light-years from Earth.

A Russian Soyuz rocket flew into space from the edge of the Amazon on Thursday, carrying a pair of European navigation satellites in the third launch in nine months for the multibillion-dollar Galileo program. Liftoff from French Guiana occurred on time at 1151:56 GMT (6:51:56 a.m. EST).

The launch of a Japanese X-ray telescope and robotic lunar lander has been delayed to no earlier than August, and the launch schedule for another Japanese mission to return samples from a moon of Mars is in doubt as engineers investigate the failure of Japan’s first H3 rocket last month.