Live coverage of the countdown and flight of a Delta 4-Heavy rocket carrying NASA’s Orion space capsule on its first test flight in Earth orbit. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
Mission Reports
Live coverage: Proton blasts off on return-to-flight mission
A Russian Proton rocket blasted off from Kazakhstan on Friday on a critical launch aiming to complete deployment of a major multibillion-dollar global communications network for London-based Inmarsat. Liftoff occurred at 1144 GMT (7:44 a.m. EDT), but it will take more than 15 hours to put the satellite in the correct orbit.
Mission Reports
Live coverage: Soyuz crew lands in Kazakhstan
Russian commander Sergey Prokopyev, German flight engineer Alexander Gerst, and NASA astronaut Serena Auñón-Chancellor closed out a nearly 197-day space mission with a landing in Kazakhstan aboard their Soyuz MS-09 crew carry ship at 0502 GMT (12:02 a.m. EST) Thursday. The Soyuz crew undocked from the International Space Station at 0140 GMT (8:40 p.m. EST Wednesday) to begin their return to Earth.