Live coverage: Soyuz launches on 13th flight from French Guiana

A Soyuz rocket lifted off from South America late Thursday to haul up the next two satellites for Europe’s Galileo navigation system, giving the network its ninth and 10th operational members. Launch occurred at 0208:10 GMT Friday (10:08:10 p.m. EDT Thursday).

One week after two cosmonauts and a NASA astronaut arrived at the International Space Station, the three crew members they’re replacing strapped into their own Soyuz spacecraft, undocked and returned to Earth Wednesday with a landing on the steppe of Kazakhstan to close out a 196-day mission.

A design flaw in a Russian Fregat upper stage was responsible for the botched orbital injection of two European Galileo navigation satellites in August, causing hydrazine fuel to freeze inside the rocket’s maneuvering system and rendering it unable to point in the right direction during a critical engine burn.