Live coverage: Ariane 5 lifts off from French Guiana

A Japanese communications satellite rode a Falcon 9 rocket into space from Cape Canaveral early Friday, reaching an on-target orbit as the launcher’s first stage booster nailed a high-speed landing on a platform in the Atlantic Ocean, logging another achievement for SpaceX’s cost-cutting reuse initiative.

A new satellite to monitor crops, pollution and the growth of cities blasted off Monday from a tropical spaceport in French Guiana, adding another piece to Europe’s multibillion-dollar fleet of spacecraft tasked to track Earth’s ever-changing environment.

SpaceX will go for another first Thursday, this time flying a refurbished Dragon supply ship carrying nearly 6,000 pounds of cargo and experiments to the International Space Station nearly three years after its first mission.