Live coverage: Soyuz blasts off on third mission for O3b

Rocket Lab launched a radar imaging satellite Tuesday for the Japanese company Synspective. The small Earth observation payload lifted off from New Zealand at 5:09 a.m. EST (1009 GMT) aboard an Electron rocket. Rocket Lab did not attempt to recover the Electron’s first stage on this mission.

After three frustrating days of weather delays, the United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral at 4:44 p.m. EST (2144 GMT) today to send Orbital ATK’s commercial Cygnus cargo freighter to the International Space Station.

Leaving crewmate Peggy Whitson behind in orbit for an extended mission, a Russian cosmonaut and his French co-pilot undocked from the International Space Station early Friday and plunged back to Earth, landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out a 196-day mission.