Live coverage: New crew arrives at International Space Station

For its first mission of the year, SpaceX launched the Airbus-built Turksat 5A communications satellite to cover Turkey, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa with data relay and television broadcast services. A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from pad 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 9:15 p.m. EST Thursday (0215 GMT Friday).

A cache of cargo bound for the International Space Station lifted off on a commercial SpaceX launcher Friday, thundering into mostly clear skies over Florida’s Space Coast aboard a reused booster that made a bullseye landing back at Cape Canaveral accompanied by a crackling sonic boom.

NASA astronaut Jeff Williams and Russian cosmonauts Oleg Skriprochka and Alexey Ovchinin finish their training in Star City in preparation for launch aboard the Soyuz TMA-20M spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome to the International Space Station on March 18.