Live coverage: International crew lands in Kazakhstan

There were more successful space launches in 2014 than in any year since 1992, with Russia, the United States and China responsible for more than 80 percent of global launch activity.

In one of its final preflight tests, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ignited at pad 39A in Florida for several seconds Thursday, ramping up to full throttle in an end-to-end checkout of the booster before liftoff next week on a space station resupply flight.

India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk.2 lifted off at 1040 GMT (5:40 a.m. EST; 4:10 p.m. Indian Standard Time) with the GSAT 7A communications satellite for the Indian Air Force. The rocket placed the spacecraft into a supersynchronous transfer orbit around 19 minutes after liftoff from Sriharikota on India’s east coast.