Live coverage: International crew lands in Kazakhstan

Rocket Lab’s second Electron booster lifted off from New Zealand’s North Island on Saturday, U.S. time, and reached orbit after an eight-minute climb over the Pacific Ocean. Liftoff with three commercial CubeSats occurred at 8:43 p.m. EST Saturday (0143 GMT; 2:43 p.m. New Zealand time Sunday).

One of five CubeSats deployed from the International Space Station last month is testing a steerable drag brake that could find use in future smallsats to return experiment samples to the ground from low Earth orbit, or on low-cost micro-probes to explore other planets.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket slated to launch two NASA astronauts into orbit May 27 test-fired its nine Merlin booster engines Friday, May 22, on launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.