Live coverage: Two satellites lift off aboard Ariane 5

Two crewmen returned to Earth from the International Space Station on Friday, riding a Russian Soyuz spaceship to a parachute-assisted, rocket-cushioned landing in Kazakhstan to close out more than 196 days in orbit. Oleg Novitskiy and Thomas Pesquet undocked from the station at 1047 GMT (6:47 a.m. EDT) and landed in Kazakhstan at 1410 GMT (10:10 a.m. EDT).

Rocket Lab scrubbed a planned launch from New Zealand Wednesday with 10 small Earth observation satellites for customers in the United States and Japan. Officials have not confirmed a new target launch date for the Electron rocket.

Blasting off shortly before sunset in French Guiana, an Ariane 5 rocket delivered two communications satellites to orbit Wednesday for the Indian space agency and companies based in Greece and the United Kingdom.