Live coverage of the countdown and launch of the NASA’s Soil Moisture Active Passive environmental satellite aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta 2 rocket. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.
Mission Reports
Live coverage: International crew launches from Kazakhstan
A Soyuz rocket with a three-person crew heading for the International Space Station lifted off at 1357 GMT (9:57 a.m. EDT) Wednesday in the final launch currently scheduled from Gagarin’s Start, a historic site at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan from where Yuri Gagarin departed on the first human spaceflight in 1961. Beginning next year, Soyuz crews will blast off from a different pad at Baikonur.
Delta 4
Live coverage: Delta 4-Heavy launches from Vandenberg Air Force Base
United Launch Alliance’s Delta 4-Heavy rocket lifted off at 11:10 a.m. PST (2:10 p.m. EST; 1910 GMT) Saturday from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, after a month-long delay to troubleshoot a hydrogen leak in one of its boosters. The heavy-lifter was on a mission to send a U.S. government spy satellite into orbit.