Live coverage: Japan’s H-2A rocket blasts off on first commercial flight

A Soyuz rocket arrived at a launch pad Tuesday in Kazakhstan for liftoff later this week with a satellite to monitor natural disasters and track forest fires from orbit and 72 secondary payloads from Russia, the United States, Germany, Norway and Japan.

A Russian-built Soyuz rocket launched Tuesday from the Guiana Space Center on the northeastern coast of South America, boosting Europe’s MetOp-C satellite into orbit to benefit weather forecasters worldwide and closing out a generation of weather-observing technology.

Watch a view of the Falcon 9 rocket’s liftoff Wednesday from the Kennedy Space Center as seen from the press site around three miles from the launch pad.