Live coverage: Two satellites lift off aboard Ariane 5

Four satellites designed to broadcast high-speed Internet signals to the developing world are mounted on top of a Russian-made Soyuz rocket for liftoff Thursday from the Guiana Space Center in South America. See photos of the quartet of satellites undergoing launch preparations.

Russian cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin, on his fifth trip into space, and rookie NASA astronaut Jack Fischer, a Colorado native, blasted off aboard a Soyuz booster at 0713 GMT (3:13 a.m. EDT) Thursday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, heading for the International Space Station for a four-and-a-half month expedition. The duo docked with the orbiting outpost at 1318 GMT (9:18 a.m. EDT).

The launch for the second Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida has slipped until Wednesday at the earliest. The powerful rocket is due to carry the Arabsat 6A communications satellite into orbit.