August 5, 2025
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Breaking News
  • [ August 3, 2025 ] Starlink mission marks SpaceX’s 450th flight-proven Falcon booster launched Falcon 9
  • [ August 1, 2025 ] NASA, SpaceX ‘thread the clouds’ to launch Crew-11 to the International Space Station Falcon 9
  • [ July 31, 2025 ] Launch preview: SpaceX, NASA launches Crew-11 following 1-day weather scrub Falcon 9
  • [ July 29, 2025 ] SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Falcon 9
  • [ July 28, 2025 ] SpaceX, NASA conduct static fire test of a Falcon 9 rocket ahead of the Crew-11 launch Falcon 9

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Ariane 5

Ariane 5 launches two satellites on 7-year voyage to Mercury

October 20, 2018 William Harwood

A powerful European Ariane 5 rocket blasted off from French Guiana late Friday and boosted a pair of satellites into space for a seven-year plunge into the inner solar system, a voyage requiring seven planetary flybys to slow down enough in the sun’s gravitational clutches to slip into orbit around hellish Mercury.

Ariane 5

Photos: BepiColombo stacked for launch to Mercury

October 19, 2018 Stephen Clark

Ground crews at the Guiana Space Center in South America have spent the last few months preparing the BepiColombo spacecraft, a tandem mission with European and Japanese science orbiters bound for Mercury, for launch aboard an Ariane 5 rocket.

Ariane 5

Live coverage: Probe heading to Mercury blasts off from French Guiana

October 19, 2018 Stephen Clark

The nearly $1.9 billion BepiColombo mission to Mercury jointly developed by the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency lifted off Friday night from French Guiana aboard an Ariane 5 rocket. Launch occurred at 9:45 p.m. EDT Friday (0145 GMT Saturday).

Ariane 5

Arianespace aims for busy second half of 2018

July 3, 2018 Stephen Clark

Europe’s first mission to Mercury, a quartet of Galileo navigation spacecraft, the world’s first global winds observatory, and a new European weather satellite have arrived at an equatorial launch base in French Guiana in preparation for launches in the coming months.

News Headlines

  • Starlink mission marks SpaceX’s 450th flight-proven Falcon booster launched
    August 3, 2025
  • NASA, SpaceX ‘thread the clouds’ to launch Crew-11 to the International Space Station
    August 1, 2025
  • Launch preview: SpaceX, NASA launches Crew-11 following 1-day weather scrub
    July 31, 2025
  • SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral
    July 29, 2025
  • SpaceX, NASA conduct static fire test of a Falcon 9 rocket ahead of the Crew-11 launch
    July 28, 2025
  • SpaceX launches 24 Starlink satellites into a polar orbit
    July 26, 2025
  • Crew-11 astronauts, cosmonaut arrive in Florida ahead of launch to the space station
    July 26, 2025
  • SpaceX launches 28 Starlink satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral
    July 25, 2025
  • Amazon says $139.5 million investment in Florida is key to ramping up launch cadence with Project Kuiper
    July 24, 2025
  • NASA probes to study how the solar wind triggers potentially dangerous ‘space weather’
    July 23, 2025
  • Home
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  • Members
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    • Members Content
  • Live
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