Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

Lockheed Martin will build two communications satellites for Saudi Arabia’s Arabsat, and Arianespace and SpaceX will launch the commercial relay platforms under contracts valued at $650 million announced Wednesday.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket took off from Cape Canaveral at 3:28 a.m. EDT (0728 GMT) today to place a classified surveillance satellite into space for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. Follow the ascent in our live journal.

A U.S.-Russian-Italian space crew closed out a 199-day expedition on the International Space Station with a parachute-assisted landing Thursday on the steppe of Kazakhstan. Touchdown of the Soyuz TMA-15M spacecraft occurred at 1343 GMT (9:43 a.m. EDT).