Q&A with Josef Aschbacher, director of ESA’s Earth observation programs (members only)

A Soyuz booster set for liftoff Wednesday with a Russian cosmonaut, a German flight engineer, and a former NASA flight surgeon heading for the International Space Station arrived at its launch pad in Kazakhstan Monday.

Projected weather impacts from Tropical Storm Maliksi passing over the Pacific Ocean south of Japan have prompted officials to push back the launch of an H-2A rocket and an Earth-imaging reconnaissance by one day to Tuesday, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency announced Saturday.

The European-built Solar Orbiter spacecraft arrived in Florida late Friday after a trans-Atlantic journey from a test center in Germany, ready to begin preparations for a liftoff from Cape Canaveral in February aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket.