The Ariane 5 rocket’s fifth flight of the year launched at 2030 GMT (4:30 p.m. EDT) with the Sky Muster and Arsat 2 communications satellites, designed to deliver broadband Internet to far-flung Australian citizens and broadcast television and networking services to Argentina and nearby countries.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket launched at 5:02 p.m. EST (2202 GMT) Thursday from Cape Canaveral with NOAA’s GOES-S weather satellite, the second in a series of upgraded observatories destined to cover the western United States and the Pacific Ocean.

Two Russian cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut flying to the International Space Station for a fourth time lifted off Friday at 2126 GMT (5:26 p.m. EDT) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The trio reached the orbiting research complex less than six hours later at 0309 GMT (11:09 p.m. EDT).