Live coverage: Ariane 5 blasts off on commercial flight

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.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket launched from Cape Canaveral with a classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office at 5:32 p.m. EST (2232 GMT) Friday. The launcher debuted new Northrop Grumman-built solid rocket boosters.

An International Launch Services Proton rocket lifted off with a communications satellite for Intelsat and DirecTV at 0710 GMT (3:10 a.m. EDT) Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan after a one-day delay to resolve an issue with an electrical connector on the booster.