Live coverage: Commercial cargo craft completes space station rendezvous

A Russian Soyuz rocket thundered to life with a burst of flame and shot away from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan Wednesday carrying an international crew of three aloft on a six-hour flight to the International Space Station.

A powerful commercial communications satellite to broadcast Internet signals over the Asia-Pacific region has arrived at Cape Canaveral for final launch preparations ahead of a planned Dec. 15 liftoff on top of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

NASA and industry teams at Cape Canaveral launched an Orion capsule on a three-minute atmospheric test flight Tuesday to prove the spaceship’s ability to escape from an exploding rocket during launch, demonstrating a key safety feature before astronauts ride the vehicle into deep space. Liftoff occurred at 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT).