Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

Russian technicians rolled a Soyuz rocket from its integration hangar to the launch pad in French Guiana on Tuesday morning, positioning the booster to receive two Galileo navigation satellites ahead of liftoff Friday.

A three-man crew departed the International Space Station on Sunday, concluding more than five months aboard the orbiting research complex and heading for landing in Kazakhstan. Undocking of the Soyuz MS-07 spacecraft occurred at 0916 GMT (5:16 a.m. EDT), and the trio landed on the Kazakh steppe at 1239 GMT (8:39 a.m. EDT).

Two U.S.-built commercial communications satellites moved to their last stop on Earth on Tuesday, when an Ariane 5 rocket rolled out to a launch pad at the edge of the Amazon jungle on the eve of liftoff.