Live coverage: Delta 2 launches

Outgoing space station commander Randy Bresnik, joined by Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy and European Space Agency flight engineer Paolo Nespoli, returned to Earth early Thursday after nearly five months in orbit. Their Soyuz MS-05 capsule undocked from the International Space Station at 12:14 a.m. EST (0514 GMT), and landed on the steppe of Kazakhstan at 3:37 a.m. EST (0837 GMT).

A new satellite built to extend a 24-year series of joint U.S.-European ocean observatories climbed away from a foggy California launch pad and sailed into orbit more than 800 miles above Earth on Sunday aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

A Norwegian communications satellite designed to connect far-flung clients and a Franco-Italian military spacecraft blasted off Sunday aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana. Liftoff from the tropical spaceport occurred at 2000 GMT (4 p.m. EDT).