Ariane 5

Europe’s third-to-last Ariane 5 rocket blasted of at 3:30 p.m. EST (2030 GMT) Tuesday from Kourou, French Guiana. The mission deployed into geostationary transfer orbit Europe’s first Meteosat Third Generation weather satellite and two television broadcasting satellites for Intelsat.

The first in a new generation of European weather satellites is set for launch Tuesday on a mission that promises to improve the timeliness and precision of weather forecasts for Europe and Africa, sharing a ride to space from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket with two Intelsat communications satellites.

A powerful Eutelsat commercial communications satellite launched Wednesday aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana, heading into orbit on a mission expected to last more than 15 years to provide broadband connectivity to rural households, ships, and airplane passengers across Europe.

An Ariane 5 rocket launched at 5:45 p.m. EDT (2145 GMT) Wednesday from Kourou, French Guiana, with a powerhouse European broadband satellite owned by Eutelsat and built by Thales Alenia Space. The Eutelsat Konnect VHTS satellite will beam internet connectivity across Europe for fixed broadband consumers and in-flight WiFi.

An Ariane 5 rocket is set to blast off Wednesday from French Guiana — a day later than planned due to a poor weather forecast Tuesday — with a Eutelsat-owned satellite designed to beam broadband internet signals across Europe from a position in geostationary orbit.

Two multi-ton geostationary communications satellites for Malaysian and Indian operators launched on a European heavy-lift Ariane 5 rocket Wednesday from French Guiana, leaving four Ariane 5s left to fly before retirement.

A European Ariane 5 rocket lifted off from Kourou, French Guiana, at 5:50 p.m. EDT (2150 GMT) Wednesday with the Malaysian MEASAT 3d communications satellite and India’s GSAT 24 television broadcast spacecraft. This mission marked the Ariane 5 flight in six months.

Two geostationary communications satellites for India’s space agency and a Malaysian company will rocket into orbit from the jungle of South America on Wednesday on a European-built Ariane 5 launcher.

The James Webb Space Telescope fired its rocket thrusters for the first time late Saturday to line up for course toward an observing post nearly a million miles from Earth, then deployed a high-rate communications antenna Sunday to transmit science data to the ground.

The James Webb Space Telescope, a NASA-led international collaboration that took nearly 30 years and $10 billion to get to the launch pad, finally left Earth with a Christmas morning rocket ride from a European spaceport in South America, setting off on a mission to hunt for the first light in the universe. That was just the easy part.