Live coverage: Station crew lands after 11 months in orbit

Launching for the 20th time from the jungle of South America, a Russian-built Soyuz booster rocketed into orbit Wednesday with a new eye in the sky for the French military, the first in a series of upgrades planned for the country’s defense satellites over the next five years.

The first satellite in a new class of ultra-powerful communications satellites for Intelsat lifted off Wednesday aboard the first Ariane 5 flight of the year. Launch from French Guiana occurred at 2320 GMT (6:20 p.m. EST).

Riding nearly a million pounds of thrust, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy and Russian crewmates Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner rocketed into orbit April 9 from the Baikonur Cosmodrome en route to the International Space Station.