Live coverage: Vega rocket launches with LISA Pathfinder

A Russian Soyuz rocket launched from French Guiana on Thursday at 1154:53 GMT (7:54:53 a.m. EDT) with the SES 15 communications satellite, a U.S.-built craft designed to support in-flight connectivity, video broadcasts and airborne navigation over North America.

A day-and-a-half after lifting off from Cape Canaveral, a SpaceX Dragon supply ship arrived at the International Space Station on Wednesday with more than 5,800 pounds of experiments, provisions and other hardware to support the orbiting lab’s six-person crew. The cargo capsule was captured by the station’s robotic arm at 6:40 a.m. EDT (1040 GMT).

The first images from the European-built Solar Orbiter mission are the closest ever taken of the sun, revealing previously unseen mini-flares nicknamed “campfires” that may offer hints about what makes the solar corona, or outer atmosphere, hotter than the sun’s surface.