Shannon Lucid gives a guided tour of the Mir space station

The blastoff of four broadband Internet satellites aboard a Soyuz rocket from French Guiana has been pushed back to Friday, the launch company Arianespace announced Monday.

A Russian cosmonaut, a German flight engineer and a NASA astronaut undocked from the International Space Station and plunged back to Earth overnight Wednesday, landing on the snowy steppe of Kazakhstan to wrap up a six-month mission.

Leading all other nations, U.S. launch providers flew 44 missions in 2020 that aimed to place payloads in Earth orbit or deep space, with 40 successes. China followed with 35 successful orbital missions in 39 launch attempts.