Europe’s Copernicus Earth Observation Constellation welcomed its seventh member on Wednesday after the Sentinel-3B ocean- and land-sensing satellite received a smooth ride to orbit atop a Russian ballistic-missile-turned-space-launcher.

A Rockot/Briz-KM launch vehicle lifted off from Site 133/3 at Russia’s Plesetsk Cosmodrome on April 25, 2018 at 17:57:52 UTC with the Sentinel-3B satellite set to join Europe’s Copernicus Constellation as its seventh member.

Loaded with a payload mass of over ten metric tons, Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket pierced into the twilight haze over French Guiana on Thursday on a flight to redeem itself after a nail-biting mission in January that saw the rocket take a wrong turn and lift its passengers into an erroneous orbit.

Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket stands ready for its comeback mission a little over two months after taking a wrong turn and leaving a pair of communications satellites in a seriously-deficient orbit.

A Russian-built Soyuz rocket soared into the skies over the Guiana Space Center on Friday with the fourth set of O3b broadband satellites joining twelve constellation craft launched in recent years to connect those parts of the world where Internet access is not readily available through conventional means.

The first Soyuz launch from the Guiana Space Center in nearly ten months is on tap on Friday as a ‘Europeanized’ version of the Russian workhorse stands ready to soar into orbit with the fourth set of O3b broadband Internet satellites.

Europe’s Ariane 5 appears to have gotten away with a black eye on Thursday when its 97th mission veered off course from the onset of the rocket’s climb, but still managed to deploy two innovative communications craft in a stable, but off-target orbit from where it will be up to the SES 14 and Al Yah 3 satellites to rectify the situation and maneuver into their operational slots above the equator.