Live coverage: Japanese cargo craft arrives at space station

Ground crews transferred an Antares rocket out of an assembly building to a launch pad on Virginia’s Eastern Shore in a major step before liftoff on Orbital Sciences’ third flight to resupply the International Space Station.

The United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral at 8:37 a.m. EDT (1237 GMT) today to deploy a classified satellite in service to the national security of the United States. Follow the mission in our live journal.

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).